It doesn't take much for glasses to give you problems. One of my (round) lenses once got loose and turned a few degrees, and that was enough to give me headache after headache. The correction was correct, just the cylinder of one lenses was a bit out of whack.

Also, your vision might be changing, Or you might be at that age when presbyopia starts setting in and your eyes can still see fine up close, but they're straining at the limit.

My experience with vision changes has always been that it was fine for years - or decades - and then all of the sudden, over the course of a few months, I'd start getting problems. You might be at that point too.

I had my progressive lenses specced out so the near and medium zones take up 3/4th of the area, and distance is only a top fringe. Think of them as a pair of reading glasses with an optional distance area at the top 🙂 I did this because I realized - like you apparently - that I spend much more time at the computer and reading than looking at far stuff.

Those glasses are almost screwed onto my face 24/7. They work for me 95% of the time. But for the sake of extra comfort, I also have 2 pairs of dedicated glasses for computer/reading (single vision, i.e. cheap): one is always at work and the other at home. I put on the former if I know I'll be staring at a screen for more than 4 hours at a time, to reduce neck strain, and I almost never use the latter. But it's there if I need it. And I have a pair of distance-only glasses (again, single vision) that I never use because the progressives do the job just fine. But on occasion, to admire landscapes and/or do photography, I'll use them.

Progressives are tricky to get right. There's the corrections of course but also how you use them. A good optician should interview you at length to ensure the near and distance areas are distributed to help you rather than get in your way. It sounds like the one you had your progressives made at didn't do that.

You might want to consider progressives. It took me two tries, and finally giving them a proper chance for four weeks to get used to them, but now it's like I don't have presbyopia. They're not cheap and they're not easy to get used to, but at least for me, they were well worth the effort.

I've never tried them. In fact, I didn't even know there were adjustable glasses that work with sliding lenses: the only type I knew of is flexlible liquid-filled lenses. I've been looking for an explanation of how the sliding lenses principle works for the past 20 minutes but I can't find anything. Annoying!

I don't think they will do you much good if you have a lot of cylinder in your correction. But if you have none, they should work. Also, they look like the field of vision is very narrow. And of course, the elephant in the room: the dork factor is off the scale 🙂

Maybe as emergency glasses

EDIT: here's a less dorky alternative - appears to work using the same sliding lens system:

Titanium damascus is wild.

Yeah, and titanium damascus is amazingly beautiful. I wish I could try making some myself, but this is 10 grades above my forging abilities.

I strongly disagree on the small lenses

Small lenses alone is a terrible idea. The key factor is as close to the eyes as possible. It's to achieve that that small lenses are needed.

At least that has been my experience.

It’s really important to work with an optician to get the right setup, especially for your first pair.

200% agreed.

Wtf, this reviewer didn’t try Zenni?

Oh yeah that's true. I didn't even notice.

What they don’t tell you? Nothing, they literally tell you everything

I thought it was informative. I've never ordered glasses online. I've yet to try it.

Hehe. My question is: who threads a piece of wire through 4 small holes without glasses? 🙂 If you have an extra pair, it's easy to do. Otherwise you might as well let the optician do it - although now you have to drive there without glasses 😉

Indeed, as per Betteridge's law of headlines 🙂

Title fixed. Thanks!

Here are two things you should know about progressive before panicking and thinking they're not for you, or the lenses have a problem, if it's your first pair:

• They will probably give you headaches and nausea the first few days. It's normal since the correction is totally alien to your brain. But bear with them until your noggin' finds its bearings with them - and also gets used to driving your neck muscles to clear your vision. If you can't get used to them after 4 weeks, then maybe there's something not quite right between you and the glasses.

• The far zone at the top is the widest: you get proper correction from left to right. The near zone at the bottom however is only a narrow zone, and the sizes are fuzzy. It's normal, and it's super-noticeable at first when you're not used to them. But eventually you'll subconsciously turn your head to keep the clear center zone in your field of view and the fuzzy sides will disappear.