Trial lens kit for before and after cataract surgery

Posted , 6 users are following.

There are test kits available that have a bunch of glass lenses. You can hold one in front of an eye, or you can use a "trial lens frame" that may even be available in the kit.

The best place to see and get those is via ebay, but you can buy the same things elsewhere at a premium.

In my use, I made a target by printing a "360 degree protractor" that has radial lines converging to the center. Those are widely available for printing free. Tape that to a suitable distance of maybe 20 ft, or 12 ft... whatever works for you, but farther is better if you can still see the target well enough.

While I bought a trial lens frame and one came with my kit, I most often just held the lens in front of an eye. In my case, it was cyl that interested me most, and was my axis very repeatable day to day.

I bought a much bigger kit than needed, because it had 1/8 D lenses for each of SPH and CYL. And for each of those it has positive and negative. 0.125 D is very subtle.

Right now a -0.5D test lens by itself sees best for me, That would be equiv to -0.25D SPH +0.25D CYL.

The 68 piece kits would be more than enough for most, but the 104 piece kits are not that much more, and some of those include a trial frame.

So is this a toy that solves curiosity? Is this a good sanity check? Is this a needless expense? Some pay that for a meal out.

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  • Edited

    Perhaps this is more than what you want to know about astigmatism and how it is classified. See this topographical image with an eye that has no astigmatism on the left to the different types of astigmatism and then irregular astigmatism caused by keratoconus, and by laser surgery.

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    image

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    And google this to find the complete video which explains how astigmatism is measured.

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    Indiana University School of Optometry Keratometry and corneal topography Christopher Clark

  • Edited

    Got my eye checked yesterday, and these were the results:

    • My self-refraction with lens kit before the exam: -1.75 sph, -1.25 cyl, -2.375 Spherical Equivalent
    • Autorefraction: -1.57 sph, -1.26 cyl, -2.20 SE
    • Optometrist manual refraction: -1.75 sph, -1.00 cyl. -2.25 SE

    I was very pleased with how close my results were. I may have a bright future as an optometrist.

    • Posted

      You can set up shop on your front lawn. The only competition will be from the lemonade stands on the street! Kidding aside, you obviously did a good job of estimating the refraction. I think I would work on getting the cylinder down. But, if you want to retain your current reading vision you will have to increase the sphere myopia to offset 50% of what you reduce your cylinder by.

    • Posted

      Everyone will want a lens test kit now. That is amazing.

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