A couple of weeks ago, I placed our family eye glass order with Zenni, and yesterday we received them.  I’m trying to make sure everyone has the most predictable of the things they’ll need in the near future, and almost everyone was due for new glasses now anyway.  I ordered a backup pair for each of us – ds18, dd16,dh and me. 

Dh got his first eye exam in years, and needs some progressive lenses – his close range eyesight has gotten better which happens as people get older, but he needs a slightly different prescription for distance.  Do you know how much progressive lenses cost???   (Progressive lenses are bifocals that don’t have the line in the middle and look like normal glasses.) $320 just for the lenses.  You didn’t think I would pay that, would you?  Nope, definitely not.  It took me a bit of figuring out to work out how to enter all the different information for his prescription, but by buying online at zenni.com, it was just $32 per pair including the frames.  Those were the most expensive glasses of the 8 pairs I got; including his two pairs it was around $150 for the entire order.

A note about ordering glasses online.  You need to have your prescription, and it must include the PD (pupillary distance).  If you go to an eye doctor like mine who jealously guards this information and insists it’s for your own benefit because you might hurt yourself by ordering your own glasses using her prescription information, you’ll need to find someone else.  I suggest before you make an appointment for an eye exam, tell them that you want the PD measurement and be sure they’re willing to give it to you.  If they won’t, move on to the next name and number in the phone book.  Dh did this and it was super easy.  Otherwise, you can have the fun experience of trying to pry out information that should be freely given to you (this is what I had to do, and I don’t find it especially enjoyable to repeatedly insist I’m allowed to look at my own children’s files).  If I was staying here longer, I would switch to another eye doctor because the resistance and extreme difficulty in getting this from our optometrist was ridiculous.  

 Then I ordered contacts for my dd who wears them – naturally, a nice supply so I won’t have to worry about this anytime soon after our move.  I ordered with Discount Contact Lenses; dd16 sent me a link to this site; I relied on her and didn’t research this at all.  I can say that the brand of lenses she ordered through our optometrist is available at this site, and even at the discounted price, is still almost double what the less expensive lenses I bought for her are. (I’m positive her name brand lenses are cheaper here than at our optometrist, but since they were covered by insurance last year, I don’t know how much they cost.) 

 The order for her was about $100 for six boxes of lenses (ie, 3 boxes for the right eye and three boxes for the left).  She only wears them on Shabbos, and one box lasted her almost a year.  Now she can wear them more often, if she chooses.

Now a note about ordering lenses online.  The law requires that the online sellers verify that your prescription is accurate with your optometrist.  I had checked with our optometrist before placing this order and told them I’d be ordering online, and was dismayed to find out a couple of days later that when the verification was requested, the optometrist refused it and said dd’s prescription is out of date.  I had to call and inquire how long after an eye exam the prescription is valid (one year), and then ask why they vetoed her order when it’s been less than a year and they told me it would be no problem just a day before.  They claimed the company never submitted the verification.  Right.  They don’t exactly have a good track record in this regard, but I told them I would have the approval request resubmitted to specifically the person I spoke to in order to avoid confusion (or passing the buck :)).   Once the approval went through, I had the lenses within less than a week. 

It’s so freeing to know that you can affordably and responsibly purchase eyewear on your own.  I’ve found online ordering extremely easy, much easier than trying on glasses in person (I ‘try them on’ the digital picture provided), and so far we’ve been happy with all of the pairs I’ve purchased as well as how they fit/look (14 pairs so far).

Avivah