I've had three pairs of glasses made up, and returned, over the past two months. The same MD has done all three exams. I have no complicating medical problems, and nothing bizarre about my vision. So, I have no glasses, and the MD, who was already frustrated by visit 2, "just doesn't know," and also repeats his mantra that "you shouldn't expect perfect vision," no matter how many times I assure him I don't expect to. I do, however, expect to be able to read road signs from a reasonable distance.
So, the eye chart sits there. It does not move. It is highlighted in a darkened room. "What's the lowest line you can read?" "Focus on the big "E." None of this is real life, and, besides, they never seem to care if you can only read part of a line, or if you tell them that a letter like "B" is completely illegible to you. What's the mystery?
The MD firmly, and impatiently, believes that the prescriptions he has written must be accurate. How can they be, if I have to be almost on top of a large road sign in order to read it? These charts have been used since the 1860s. Life is not as slow as it was in the 1860s, and measuring vision within 20 feet - and I'm sure it is far less than 20 feet in this MD's office, isn't rational, is it?
Shouldn't testing equipment match the myriad lights that we're exposed to, the speed of road travel? How hard would it be? I paid my money, but don't need to be made to feel like a pain in the neck, and I don't know any office where other than the Snellen chart has been abandoned in favor of more realistic testing, so what to do?