Are there generic near-sighted glasses?

Most, if not all, people who are near-sighted, have slightly different corrections in each eye. Glasses are not interchangeable the way reading glasses are.

Can the teacher and administration make a huge effort to educate and help the parents?

I work for a company that supplies the means to these parents to get their children the healthcare they need. I call them, ask them to get their kids to the doctors to get their vaccinations, well child visits, etc. 95% of these people hang up on me or just tell me they are getting their kids to doctors. I know this isn’t true, I have their records. It is free insurance and they won’t get their kids to doctors. I don’t know the answer.

@6rant6 This may be my favorite question ever.

I have worn glasses for decades, since age 10. In the past ten years they became really expensive.

I look at the $5 reading glasses at Walgreens with envy.

Well, what can you do if the parents are either unwilling or somehow unable help their own children? What the hell is wrong with them? Is that all there is to it? They just won’t? That’s so wrong. But yes. It sounds like outreach to the parents is the only way to help. You also might contact your local Lions Club. That’s kind of their mission. Maybe they can help, provide support or give you some ideas on how to get the parents more involved. It’s really up to them. I don’t know, but I’m thinking you really can’t provide medical services for minor children, even eye exams, without the parents’ permission and some of these kid may need a lot more than just reading glasses. Just throwing a pair of reading glasses on them could do them more harm than good.

Most young children who do need glasses (me in 4th grade and my sister in kindergarten, for example)) are near-sighted and would be essentially blind if they put on a pair of drugstore magnifying glasses.

It depends on the situation. I’m speaking on the “basis that the problem you gave us is of the parents misconceptions”. I remember when I was in high school there was a teen that pretty much living in a hallway in an apartment building. The teacher found out and tried to help on a level basis by calling the parent. The parent was a junkie, so they pretty much just said that they’d had control of the situation. The situation was that the parent was in North Carolina doing drugs while the teen got evicted out of the apartment in DC. Sometimes the teacher “MAY” have to call some ” professional” help (Like child services). There are a number of free health clinics around the country, and at the least they offer free eye check ups. If you can get the parent to consent to the free check up, then you can at least get the prescription needed for the glasses, then you can go to some place like wal-mart to get the glasses for cheap. (I don’t know if wal-mart charges different rates in different areas, where I’m at now it’s like 88 dollars just for 2 pair of regular glasses and 1 pair of contacts.)

@gailcalled The question is not about magnifying glasses. Why are there no drugstore glasses for us? Near-sighted people?

I answered this already. It is because each eye has a different correction that can be determined only by an Optomotrist or Opthamologist.

Correcting for myopia is much more complicated than for farsightedness caused by aging.

@jaytkay That’s what “drug store glasses” are. They are magnifying glasses. That’s all they do. They are reading glasses, they magnify. They do not correct any other kind of vision problem.

Correcting for myopia is much more complicated than for farsightedness caused by aging.

Why?

Why would farsightedness be uniform and equal between the eyes while near-sightedness is not?

I know that the farsightedness is not the same in both my eyes.

I understand that there are limitations to what can be done, especially without the parent’s cooperation. But is there nothing that can be done? Maybe there’s no way to help them all, but at least help some of them? One of the kids tested 20/80. I mean, some improvement would make a big difference.

Here’s a story about cheap adjustable prescription glasses for the third world.

I assume they are necessary, that off-the-rack glasses are not viable.

But why?

http://abcnews.go.com/Health/story?id=117993&page=1

I really have no idea if this would work, but where I am optometrists collect used glasses to send to third world countries. Could you perhaps check whether this is something you could ask parents/local optometrists to do? Donate/collect used glasses? The only concern I would have is whether wearing an incorrect prescription could do the child’s eyes more harm than good?

I have often tried on my other people’s glasses to see whether I could make do in a pinch. Even those of my nearest and dearest genetically (my mother and sister) gave me palpitations, blurred vision, nausea and vertigo

It is true that collections (even at my local bank) are made for re-use, but a skilled technician can match lens from different glasses to get pretty good fit. One from column A and one from column B.

@Bellatrix: I will ask my optometrist when I stop by to get my frames adjusted so they still hang on each ear. interesting idea.

@jaytkay: The early changes in the parts of the eye that cause nearsightedness (and often the accompagnying astigmatism) are complex and almost often different in each eye..

The older adult (usually over 40) needs a much simpler and usually symmetrical correction because the issue is gradual aging of eyes with normal vision.

Learn all about optics here

One tidbit: The NV (near vision) correction due to presbyopia (farsightedness) can be predicted using the parameter age only. *The accuracy of such a prediction is sufficient in many practical cases, especially when the total correction is less than 3 diopters.

I’ve been wearing glasses since the age of ten.

No two times I have visited the optometrist has my prescription come out the same. Sometimes it’s a little worse, sometimes it’s a little better, sometimes it’s worse in one eye and better in another. My glasses from five years ago, lo and behold, work better than my newer pair! (which I broke at a concert last night. Thank the eyeglass gods I saved these old ones)

They’re not off-the-rack items for a reason.

Thank you @gailcalled.

My hubs is an optician that has worked at an office with lower-income patients. Even when the glasses are free (provided by state insurance or whatever), the parents are required to bring their child in for at least two visits – one to get an eye exam and choose frames, and one more time to pick up the glasses and get them adjusted.

They may have to travel a long distance since not many doctors deal with these types of patients (at least, this is the case in Maryland). So it would be a challenge for someone that doesn’t have a car or access to transportation to take their kid for an eye exam, which is totally required for distance prescriptions.

Not only that, but when the glasses are paid for by state insurance, they only pay for plastic frames.

If your prescription is a particularly strong one (mine, for example), plastic lenses will be so thick and distorted, you might as well actually wear Coke bottles. I get polycarbonate lenses, and even they are somewhat distorted. And that’s an extra $70 – $100 that the state insurance won’t pick up.

Yeah, cheap lenses are thicker, quite a bit cloudier, and scratch really easily. Kids usually need at least one backup pair.