My mum needs new glasses, and in an attempt to save money she's looked online at the various different sites that sell frames with the prescription lenses as well. Has anyone ever done this? Is it risky?

I bought a pair for £15 that were fine for spares.

Only thing is that was a couple of years ago when you just enter your prescription online. They changed the rules so now you have to send them your prescription, before they will make them. Also you need a measurement of the distance between left and right pupil that will likely not be on the prescription so you might have to ring up the opticians to get it from their records. You also have the issue of setting the glasses up to fit properly, unless you buy frames that do not need adjusting.

My sister and my husband have bought on line and various members of staff where my husband works and none have had any problems. I have refrained from buying on line as I always seem to have problems and end up having to go back.

I think that some of the places on line will send out the frames for you to try before making them up.

Bearing in mind how long it takes to do the measurements whenever I have new glasses I wouldn't chance it.

I'm on my second online pair and they're just as good as shop ones. I have never (in 36 years of wearing glasses) managed to get any that didn't slide down my nose so they might as well be cheap and do it as expensive. The coating on my online specs seems much tougher and more resitant to scratches than my old shop ones. As far as the measuring goes, you can use the standard (which is right for most people) or get the measurement from your optician. They're supposed to put it on your presrciption. There is some suggestion that they leave it off to discourage you from buying online. My prescription is quite strong and both times I've ordered online the optician there has phoned me to discuss my glasses, lenses and so on which I was quite impressed with. They cared more than the last time I bought from a shop.

You can upload a photo of yourself and 'try the glasses on'. It works quite well. I can't see myself in a mirror without my glasses so I can't try glasses on very easily anyway, so not much difference. I always have to use the shop's machine, that takes photos, to see myself in lensless glasses!

I bought a pair online last year and didn't have to send in my prescription.

I had my eyes tested yesterday and told the optician about my glasses always going down my nose (and when you think about it, when they test your eyes the glasses are rammed hard against your head, so the effect of the lenses will be different from the real glasses halfway down my nose). I said I'd like some like children have, with wire round the ears and she said she thought that wasn't necesary but didn't offer any other solution.

Thanks for all your replies. I think my mum was put off by the really, really high prices (£200 min) in the shop and so she wanted to see if she could get anything cheaper elsewhere. It's unfortuante that they are so expensive...and I guess I'm lucky because I managed to squeeze in my last pair of glasses on the NHS voucher for school age students. My mum was thinking about sending off her current frames, which are nice and in good condition, to get the lenses replaced which costs about £15. Then if that works well she might get some new frames and keep the others as spares. Thanks again

Something I've done in the past that worked quite well was to take a rubber band and wrap it around the bit of the arm that rests against my ear, to provide a non-slippy surface. You can feel it at first but quickly get used to it, and if your hair is long enough you don't see it. After a while (weeks/months) the rubber seems to degrade and snap but they're easily replaced, and its a very quick and cheap fix.

This is also useful for wearing cool shades on a lilo in the swimming pool and stop them falling off

You don't want those! I had those as a child and more than 40 years later the skin still splits from time to time where they used to with the wire round my ears.


I doubt I'd get mine much cheaper anyway. Even with a cheaper frame I have to pay more than £200 extra for the lenses I need. And I'm not sure that a standard measurement is what I have.