Ask HN: Do your eyes bug you even though your prescription is "correct"?

About 15 years ago or so I was part of a study for Zeiss wavefront lenses. They used some sort of interferometer to map my vision and generated a set of aspherical lenses based on that. They were absolutely the best pair of glasses I ever owned hands down. No chromatic aberration. Absolutely crystal clear vision. Granted, this was before presbyopia set in. As far as I could tell, they never really rolled out the system for anything but progressive lenses. It's a shame.

Anyway, I've been fighting progressives for about 5 years now. I have 2 pairs that I got a couple years apart but could never bring myself to wear them. Like some others have said, I much prefer having a pair of medium distance computer lenses. They end up being the glasses I wear when I'm at home even when I'm not in front of the computer. I now have to lift them up to see up close, but that's a reasonable compromise to wearing progressives.

I really want to find an optometrist who uses some alternative to the old phoropter system. My prescription is currently a bit "off" and I swear it's because the phoropter system is fundamentally flawed. My eyes adjust and adapt during the test, causing me to misreport the optimal setting. There just isn't enough time in a typical appointment to detect eyestrain or other issues with a particular prescription.

The problem as I see it is that the diopter system only has a limited number of different profiles. So if you fall in between a diopter (need more than a 2.5 but less than a 2.75, say) the lenses won't be perfect and you'll have eyestrain.

Presbyopia hit me about 10 years ago. Some people I know use all-day contacts for distance vision then wear glasses on top for computer use and reading. I'm considering it.