I'll agree about frames but lenses... depends upon your age partially.

Everyone between about 22 and 40 should have their eyes checked every two years at least, younger and older should have them checked every year.

Between those ages mentioned, it is pretty common for the prescription to remain unchanged for a number of years unless there are other physiological changes happening such as onset of diabetes, changes in blood pressure / cholesterol medications, becoming pregnant... anything that changes your body's chemistry has potential to change your vision.

In the growing years though, as your body changes, so does your eyes. During this time you can expect the youngster to need new lenses at least every year, perhaps frames as well depending upon how gently the frame is treated.

In the older years, the distance vision may still not change (aside from higher incidences of needing bp / cholesterol / diabetes meds) but your needs for reading assistance increases. In addition to possible eyewear Rx changes though, there are complications that happen to our bodies that can be detected quite quickly with a thorough eye exam as the blood vessels and nerves are visible to the doctor. Here is where retinal photography comes in, it is wise to choose a doctor who offers this, also a "visual fields" test which checks for blind spots is advisable.

The retinal photograph and the visual fields tests each provide "hard" records of what exactly is going on with your eyes (and blood vessels and nerves) from year to year. There have been many instances where these tests have caught otherwise mysterious problems much sooner than they may have otherwise been diagnosed... particularly in the case of undetected brain tumors.


Sorry, optician lesson done for today... even though I've not done that job for a number of years now, it is something that still sticks. I just want "everyone" to take good care of their eyes!

Your Swiss health insurance pays a part of your glasses/lenses each year. Just send them the bill.

My husband and I save lots of money by ordering our lenses online.

The BASIC insurance only gives limited cover. From the Comparis website -
SUPPLEMENTARY cover will usually pay more but it depends on what policy you have.

That's why I said "a part".

Yes, of course it depends on your eyes. But it's not like your eyes are declining rapidly most of the time. My brother and sister don't really get new lenses every two year. At least the optician says it's not really necessary yet. Sometimes the eyes even get better (happened here )

McOptick. Last time I had an eye test they didn't charge me, my prescription hadn't changed. I also had the wonky arm of my glasses repaired which only took a few minutes and costed CHF10 - I thought that was very fair.

I've just bought 3 pairs of lenses in Serbia. A pair of lenses is usually about 50-60 CHF (max). And you have an eye test for free.

This where I've been getting mine every two year since 1994



You should have gone to ....

Or read through the bottom of a beer bottle. Cost: 20 Rappen.


P.S. Oombie here is not yet trained as a Seeing-Eye dog, so your insurance company can't yet pay the dog foundation CHF300 a month for her services.

I can't believe the prices being thrown around ! I thought UK prices were steep. I have used http://www.goggles4u.com/ before ... very cheap (around £13 for basic distance glasses). Quality is as good as I experianced from the usual UK high street shops. Worth a go at that price anyway! There are numerous other online places too: simply search for online glasses on google.. you simply send your prescription and choose frames.

Eeek!!

That's soooooo not a wise thing to do!


There are many many technical measurements needed in addition to the Rx itself in order to make glasses that are truly correct for you.

Not wanting to do soap box thing today, I'll say this:
Go check out the frames they have, check out a local optical shop that has THE SAME frame so you can make sure of the size. While you are there, have the optician measure the distance between your pupils.

If you need to wear multi-focal lenses (bifocals, no-line - I think ya'll call them "varifocal" or something around here, in the US they call them "progressive" lenses), it is even more important to find the exact frame and have a local optician measure the "bifocal" height.


IF the online form includes space for all this and you include it, you should be alright otherwise, such glasses should be relegated to the "emergency" drawer as something to wear while on your way to a real optician in order to have broken / lost / whatever glasses replaced. (Otherwise you're asking for monster headaches at best and all sorts of potential odd complications at "worst")

Well, all I can say is I have never had any problems and have saved a lot of money by buying glasses directly online. At the end of the day the manufacturer of the glasses simply uses the prescription to produce the lenses so I cannot see any difference to paying over-inflated prices of high street shops. OK, you get the service, but is it worth paying 10x the price?!

like I said, I have basic distance glasses with correction for astigmatism. Everything I needed (including the pupillary distance) is on my prescription. If its not you can ask the optician for it (its simply the distance between your pupils (not rocket science).

are you an optician?
OK, I'll give you that ... for more complicated glasses I guess you have no choice but to get screwed by the high street optician's prices .

I have never had any problem with my online glasses (I have had several pairs) and know of numerous other people who say the same... but if you really want to pay 10x the price for exactly the same thing I can't stop you .

Glasses are cheap in Fiehlmanns... have you got specialist viewing problems?

My glasses were 70 CHF each all in, was very pleasantly surprised.

You would be better of getting on a Air Lingus flight at Zurich to the UK for 60chf flying and paying 99GBP for 2 pairs of glasses at Vision Express.

http://www.visionexpress.com/offers/...s-one-designer

It's not the frames that are expensive, you can easily find cheap ones at Fielman's, it the lenses.
I agree with Oldhand, glasses are so expensive and very little is covered by health insurance. Unless you want lenses like the bottom of a bottle, it's costly to get really thin lenses.
I've been thinking of trying France or Gemany at this point, has anybody done that ?

I dont agree with that, you can get glasses cheaply as I showed in my posts... and they are very nice discreet black frames + normal lenses, no idfferent visually to the ones I paid £200 for in the UK. It's only designer frames and specialist lenses which cost money, and the same can often be said for England.

Tried that when we were in holiday in Scotland a couple of years ago. Sounds fabulous until you find you need the thin lenses with a coating then the cost works out about the same as it would in Switzerland. Plus if you break them (husband's glasses broken due to me sitting on them - oops ), the guarantee means diddly-squat unless you want to take another flight over to the nearest Vision Express to get them repaired.

We both agree Richdog, I'm speaking about specialist lenses. Depending on what you need medically, the lenses can be very expensive. If I bought normal lenses with my prescription, I'd have glasses so thick I'd be wearing a looking glass. To get extra thin lenses which create a more acceptable appearance (unless you find really small eyes or owl eyes appealing) you have to dish out a pretty penny.

Ahh I see... no wonder they cost a bomb for you then.

Yes but you get two pairs, surely your are not going to sit on both are you?