5 Features To Consider When Getting Glasses

In a recent survey about the use of corrective eyewear in the United States, the Vision Council reports that 83% of respondents use some form of vision correction and 68% use prescription eyewear, including glasses and contact lenses.

These numbers reflect the fact that 150 million Americans have a refractory issue that prevents them from seeing clearly, such as nearsightedness, farsightedness, and astigmatism.

If you find yourself in this large group and you rely on prescription glasses for better vision, our optometry team at LaSante Health Center has you covered. 

Beyond outfitting patients with glasses that snap everything into focus, we can also add some features to prescription lenses that can improve your vision and protect your eyes at the same time. Let’s take a look.

Anti-glare lenses 

One of the chief complaints we get among eyeglass users and people with poor vision is glare, which can be fairly strong in a city like New York. 

If your vision is negatively affected by lights and glare and it’s making your world a little fuzzier, we can add an anti-reflective coating to your lenses. This anti-glare coating can help you see better at night, and it can also help to reduce glare from screens while you work.

Sun protection

We always recommend that patients outfit themselves with prescription sunglasses, especially if they struggle to see at a distance (nearsightedness), to protect against potentially harmful ultraviolet (UV) rays.

Just like your skin, UV rays can burn your eyes and increase your risk for certain eye diseases, including cataracts and macular degeneration.

While sunglasses are great, we can also put a UV coating on your regular lenses that can block this harmful radiation.

If you want the best of both worlds, you can get glasses that darken when you go outside (photochromic lenses) so you have UV protection in one pair of lenses that go seamlessly from indoors to outdoors.

Progressive lenses

Many of our patients have trouble seeing at distance and up close. Instead of swapping out glasses as needed, we recommend getting progressive lenses that gradually go from distance viewing to reading. Many of our patients prefer these progressive lenses to bifocal lenses, which are more abrupt and have a line through them.

Anti-scratch lenses

Most of our glasses come with anti-scratch polycarbonate lenses so you have some protection for your lenses there. If you’re tough on glasses though, you might want to consider upgrading to Trivex lenses, which are more resistant to scratches. 

Blue light lenses

If you want to protect your eyes against the additional blue light you get from screens, we can add a blue light coating to the lenses.

As you can see, there are plenty of features that can help you get the most out of your eyewear, and we’re happy to discuss which ones might be best for your needs.

To schedule your eye exam or to discuss different options in lenses, we invite you to call our Brooklyn, New York, clinic at 718-246-5700, or use our online booking tool to set up an appointment. You can also visit our urgent care center as a walk-in.

Our team proudly serves the Flatbush and East Flatbush, Crown Heights, Park Slope, Little Haiti, Little Caribbean, and Prospect Lefferts Gardens communities.