The UK's Finest Independent Forum for Shooters and Gun Owners. Est 2010.

I've been wearing multifocal contact lenses for about five years now. Mine have three focal areas (distance, near and reading) and they are excellent for shooting.

The downsides are a slight loss of contrast and halos/glare around street lights at night.

I've worn rigid lenses for over forty years, and these are rigid too. They are better than soft lenses as they allow more oxygen to the eye, and give you a more precise optical result. They are also considerably cheaper (around £250 a pair which will last five years if your eyes don't change).

Racalman wrote:[...]around £250 a pair[...]

Holy smokes, that's expensive

In the ten years of wearing contact lenses I've only ever lost one pair because of a rollercoaster. I was gutted cause I didn't have a spare set on me, but I think I would've died if I had to fork out £250 for a new set!

As a side note, have you guys seen the "How It's Made" episode on contact lenses? Really neat.

WelshShooter wrote:

Racalman wrote:[...]around £250 a pair[...]

Holy smokes, that's expensive

In the ten years of wearing contact lenses I've only ever lost one pair because of a rollercoaster. I was gutted cause I didn't have a spare set on me, but I think I would've died if I had to fork out £250 for a new set!

As a side note, have you guys seen the "How It's Made" episode on contact lenses? Really neat.

£50 a year is not expensive for multifocal lenses. My wife pays £25 a month for her ordinary disposable soft lenses.

I usually wear daily lenses which are also GBP25/month. The new ones are around twice that if I go for them and I am tempted to go for monthlies. I am on day three of multifocals and they do take some getting used to, one thing I have noticed is things at distance seem to be very slightly out of focus however if I blink once I can see correctly. Right now I do like them however I am still not convinced.

Racalman wrote: £50 a year is not expensive for multifocal lenses. My wife pays £25 a month for her ordinary disposable soft lenses.

Yes I understand that £50 a year is very reasonable, but if you bought a new pair and lost them a week later, well, you're still gonna have to pay £250 for a new pair aren't you?

I was paying £30 per month for dailies, now paying £16 per month for monthlies. At least if I lose a pair of my lenses you'd be looking at £16 maximum to replace them...

Ovenpaa wrote:I usually wear daily lenses which are also GBP25/month. The new ones are around twice that if I go for them and I am tempted to go for monthlies. I am on day three of multifocals and they do take some getting used to, one thing I have noticed is things at distance seem to be very slightly out of focus however if I blink once I can see correctly. Right now I do like them however I am still not convinced.

What aren't you convinced about? Also, do you know which type of multifocal lense you have? There's "alternating" and "simultaneous" vision types. Are these contact lenses a different material to what you are used to? I found that my dailies dried out a lot and my vision was blurred when I was working in a cleanroom with laminar air flow. When I swapped to monthlies, they felt much better and I had no issues with drying out or blurred vision. But these lenses were noticeable thicker than my dailies so took me a bit of time to stop "feeling them" in my eyes. Perhaps your eyes are taking time to adjust to these new lenses?

http://www.allaboutvision.com/contacts/bifocals.htm

WelshShooter wrote:

Racalman wrote: £50 a year is not expensive for multifocal lenses. My wife pays £25 a month for her ordinary disposable soft lenses.

Yes I understand that £50 a year is very reasonable, but if you bought a new pair and lost them a week later, well, you're still gonna have to pay £250 for a new pair aren't you?

I was paying £30 per month for dailies, now paying £16 per month for monthlies. At least if I lose a pair of my lenses you'd be looking at £16 maximum to replace them...

They wouldn't cost me that much because I pay an annual fee for free eye and contact lens checks and it gives me a good discount if I lost them.

Ovenpaa wrote:I usually wear daily lenses which are also GBP25/month. The new ones are around twice that if I go for them and I am tempted to go for monthlies. I am on day three of multifocals and they do take some getting used to, one thing I have noticed is things at distance seem to be very slightly out of focus however if I blink once I can see correctly. Right now I do like them however I am still not convinced.

Not everyone can get the hang of them, it depends on whether your brain can adapt to the task of correlating the various images.

Here are the lenses I use:

http://www.davidthomas.com/assets/Menifocal-Z.pdf

They are certified for 30 day wear but I take them out in the evening and put varifocal glasses on.

Racalman, I like the idea of the transition zone, are these rigid or soft lenses?

Ovenpaa wrote:Racalman, I like the idea of the transition zone, are these rigid or soft lenses?

RGP (rigid gas permeable). They're also sold under the name Oblong Genius.