When Eyeglasses Are Too Tight. The Best Tips for Relaxed Vision and the Perfect Fit.

Your eyeglasses are pressing against the sides of your head, seeing is strenuous, the nose bridge is annoyingly uncomfortable. What do you do when the glasses don't fit properly? What can you watch out for when buying glasses and having them fitted to ensure relaxed and better vision? 

Finally! Perfect vision with optimally fitted eyeglasses and eyeglass lenses – but suddenly the sides are pressing against your temples, the nose bridge is getting uncomfortable or the glasses are constantly slipping down your nose. Continuous relaxed vision depends not only on having the right eyeglass lenses. Everything else about them also has to be right for the glasses to be comfortable all the time and to keep them from irritating the wearer. There are several ways of achieving greater wearing comfort, usually without spending too much time. Here are some tips for a good eyeglass fit from BETTER VISION. 

In general, thin and light lenses are more comfortable to wear. Plastic eyeglass lenses have an advantage, since they can be produced to be up to 50% lighter than glass lenses (for instance  high refractive index lenses from ZEISS made of special plastic).  As a rule, the lighter the glasses are, the more comfortable they are to wear.

The nose bridge is one of the few points of contact between your face and the glasses, which makes it even more important to have your glasses fitted perfectly by your eye care professional. The crucial factor is making sure that the nose pads sit "solidly," i.e., the pad surface has as much nose contact as possible and the pads are positioned properly all the way round. Otherwise, the glasses can lose their grip quickly. With plastic eyeglass frames in particular, this should be taken into consideration when choosing and fitting the glasses because the area around the nose on plastic frames is very difficult to alter afterwards. For glasses with metal frames, the nose pads come in many different sizes and materials and can be replaced and adjusted easily. Here, again, your eye care professional is aware of all the special aspects for an optimal fit and is happy to give you further detailed advice.

The sides of the glasses should be adjusted to the shape of the face so that no pressure can be felt on the temples. Often, such pressing at the temples is misunderstood to mean that the glasses are sitting properly. Optimally-fitted sides should only cause a slight pressure behind the ear to keep the weight of the glasses from bearing down on the nose. However, if the glasses are too tight, the sides move upwards on the sides of the head and the eyeglass frames slide down the nose.

By the way, in certain situations, the sides of plastic eyeglass frames can deform slightly due to changes in temperature caused by the weather. If this causes discomfort, your eye care professional can get the glasses back to their original shape easily.

Tips for active sports fans: Silicone tips and covers for metal frames are water-repellent and ensure a tight grip and optimum fit even during heavy sweating.

Depending on the type of visual aid required, two completely different criteria can apply for the ideal eyeglass frames (for instance for progressive lenses).  As a rough rule of thumb though, the optimal size of eyeglass frames is a combination of two factors: the pupillary distance and the size of the eye sockets. The top of the frames should be below the eyebrows and above the fold of the eye. This offers the best vision as the rim of the frames or the lenses do not get in the way. For a well-proportioned fit, we recommend eyeglass frames which are not much wider than the wearer's face and allow the wearer to look through the middle of the eyeglass lenses.  More...

Essentially, your eye care professional will be happy to help if your glasses are "pressing" – they would normally do this even if you did not buy your glasses directly from them.

Comfortable and always firmly in place without slipping: properly fitted frames are also one of the most important criteria when fitting glasses for children. Here are some tips for the best eyeglass fit. A round shape has proven to be a good choice for children's glasses since children like to look over the rim, and so round glasses ensure a greater area for seeing through. If you choose metal frames, there will also be a so-called "saddle bridge": two silicone pads joined together that sit on the bridge of the nose providing an extremely comfortable fit.  More…

ZEISS lens cleaning wipes ensure the optimal clarity for your perfectly fitted eyeglasses. With their innovative combination of active ingredients, they clean eyeglass lenses or other surfaces (e.g., displays on cameras or mobile phones) effectively and more gently than most of the other cleaning products (confirmed in independent tests). Also, you can even use them to easily remove any sweat or grease from the skin that leaves a mark on your glasses during the day.