My Monovision Experiment Works!

[undone]

I am ecstatic! My very first pair of monovision glasses arrived a few
days ago and I am pleased to say that I have already adjusted to them!
I can see far away AND close up without having to change glasses and
without wearing bifocal or progressive lenses! I experienced a little
dizziness the first several hours wearing the monovision glasses, but
after that, it went away.

What is monovision, you ask? It is where one eye (normally the
dominant eye) is fitted for distance vision and the other eye is
fitted for close up vision. The brain is able to adjust between the
two. The adjustment period can happen right away or may take a month
or so. This approach is similar to what many people have done via
Lasik surgery.

In my case, I had my right dominant eye fitted with my normal distance
prescription, but adjusted my left eye's Sphere by +1.00 to
accommodate for intermediate vision. That way, I have my intermediate
vision, or computer glasses, "built in". (My close up vision is
perfectly fine without any correction at all.)

I've wanted to try this for several months now, and finally decided to
give it a try. I ordered a cheaper pair of glasses from Zenni (frame
#3186 in black with AR) to see if it would work for me, figuring that
if it didn't work, I would only be out $20 bucks.

The only problem I forsee at this point is this: I have 6 pairs of
glasses recently purchased online which are not monovision that I will
probably not use again! Time to do more online glasses shopping, but
this time with monovision!

[Fred Di]

That's great to hear. I have a pair of Monovision lenses too, but my
success is a tad less that yours. I've had them for about 6 months.
In my case my left eye is dominate and has my normal distance
prescription. In my right eye, I added 1.75 to my normal
prescription. (My progressives prescription says +2.25) but I have
found that +1.75 works best for computer work, but I sit 18inches from
the computer screen.

I have found that my mono vision glasses work well for casual use. TV
watching and driving are fine. I like to wear them out to the grocery
store and to restaurants, because they work great for reading menus
and product labels.

But for computer use, or serious reading, I can't really use them.

My left eye is definitely dominant for both reading and distance. I
think that forcing my right eye to become dominate is a bit of a
problem for me. My right eye is much worse and has astigmatism, and
has been that way since I was in elementary school. So I suspect that
my better eye, the left, has gotten very used to being dominant.

I only spent $8 for mine, so I am pleased, and I tend to use them much
more than my regular distance glasses. I am considering another pair,
with perhaps a +0.50 in the left eye, and +1.50 in the right eye. Or
possibly, simply the reverse of what I have now, +1.75 in the left
eye, +0.00 in the right.

[sj]

Glad to hear they are working out well for you!

I also use monovision glasses. However, I do use my old full strength
distance glasses for driving at night.

For some reason, the mono vison works best for me with my non-dominant
left eye using the full strength lens. It may be because only my right
eye has some astigmatism and somehow seems to prefer the under
correction. My left eye correction is spherical only.

I first tried monovision years ago with contact lenses and I don't
remember any trouble getting used to it. I started it with right eye
full strength and then one day acidentally swapped lenses right to
left and liked it better that way.

[undone]

Interesting about the non-dominant eye being your better eye for full
strength distance. It must be different for each individual.

Now that I have worn my monovision glasses for a while, I can actually
feel my non-dominant eye kick in for close up work, like right now
when I am typing on the computer. It feels like eye-strain which is
probably the case since that non-dominant eye is now having to take
the lead role in focusing close up.