Guides — plain answers from the people who’ll see you

Glasses and lenses

• The honest guide to varifocal lenses: what nobody tells you before you buy.Most people who struggle with varifocals were never told how they work, which one suits them, or how to get used to them. This guide tells…
• Single vision, varifocal, occupational: which lens do I need?Three questions decide it: how old you are, what you do all day, and whether you want one pair or two. Here’s the version we give across…
• Thin lenses: what the index numbers mean and what you pay forOver about plus or minus three, the standard lens gets thick at the edges or the middle. Thinner materials fix that, at a price — and the…
• Anti-reflection, blue light, photochromic: which lens coatings are worth it?One coating helps nearly everyone. Some help particular people. And one or two are less useful than they sound. Here they are, in that…
• Why do my new glasses feel wrong?The floor slopes, the edges swim, there’s a headache by lunchtime. Some of that settles in a week. Some of it never will, and shouldn’t be…

Contact lenses

• Varifocal contact lenses: do they work, and could they work for you?If you are over forty, reaching for reading glasses, and wondering whether contact lenses can still work for you, they very likely can.…
• Why do my contact lenses dry out? And how to fix it.If your lenses feel lovely in the morning and dry, scratchy or blurry by the afternoon, you are not doing anything wrong, and you do not…
• Why do my contact lenses hurt when I blink, especially at the end of the day?A lens that scratches or stings every time you blink is telling you something. It is usually simple to put right, and you should not have…
• Keratoconus: what it is, and what scleral lenses doKeratoconus is the cornea thinning and bulging into a cone. Glasses stop working because the surface is no longer smooth. A scleral lens…

Eye tests

• How much is an eye test? Every price, honestlyAnywhere between nothing and £125, depending on what you’d like looked at. Here’s what each level includes, so you can choose the right one.
• NHS eye test vs private: what the £55 actually buysThe NHS test isn’t a cut-down version. At an independent it’s the same optometrist, the same room and most of the same checks. The…
• What is an OCT scan, and do I need one?A photograph of the back of your eye shows the surface. An OCT scan shows what’s underneath, layer by layer. That’s where glaucoma and…
• How often should I have an eye test?Every two years is the standard answer and it’s right for most people. The exceptions matter more than the rule.
• Astigmatism: what it is, how it feels, and how it is correctedAstigmatism is one of the most common reasons people need glasses, and many people have a little without knowing. It is not an eye disease.…
• Prescription sunglasses: your options, from everyday to varifocalIf you wear glasses, you can have sunglasses that let you see properly too, in single vision or varifocal lenses, and in most frames,…
• Lazy eye (amblyopia) in children: the signs, and why treating it early mattersA lazy eye is an eye whose sight has not developed properly in childhood, so the brain relies on the other eye. It is very treatable, and…
• Eyesight for driving: the UK rules, and when to have your eyes checkedEvery driver has to meet the eyesight standard every time they drive, not just on the day of their test. Here are the rules in plain words,…
• VDU eye tests: what your employer must pay for, and what they don’tIf you use a screen for a big part of your working day, the law says your employer must pay for an eye test when you ask, and for glasses if…
• What happens at an eye test — forty-five minutes, step by stepIf it’s been years, or you’ve only ever had a short one, here’s the whole forty-five minutes — so nothing’s a surprise.
• Free eye tests: who qualifies in 2026About half of adults qualify and a good few don’t know it. The list, in one place, for this year.
• Glaucoma: the test that finds it years earlyGlaucoma is the one that has no symptoms. By the time you notice anything, the sight that’s gone doesn’t come back. It’s found at eye…
• Macular degeneration: what you can actually do this yearThere are two kinds and they need opposite responses. The dry kind is slow, and there are things that slow it further. The wet kind is fast…
• Cataracts: when to have surgery, and what to expect afterNearly everyone who lives long enough gets a cataract. The operation is one of the safest and commonest in medicine. The only real question…
• Diabetes and your eyes: what the yearly check looks forDiabetes damages the small vessels at the back of the eye without any symptoms until late. You’re entitled to two checks a year — the…

Urgent problems

• Red eye: when it’s nothing, and when it’s todayMost red eyes settle on their own. A few are the kind that damage sight if left a week. The difference is four signs, and none of them is…
• Flashes and floaters: the ones that need seeing the same dayA retinal tear caught the same day is a ten-minute laser. Left a week, it can be a detachment and an operation. The signs are specific, and…
• Stye or chalazion? What to do tonightA lump on the eyelid is nearly always one of two things, both harmless, both fixable at home most of the time. Here’s how to tell them…
• Something in my eye: what to do, and what not to doMost things wash out. The ones that don’t — and the ones you should never try to get out yourself — are the reason to know this before it…

Choosing and finding us

• Choosing an optician: the questions worth askingEvery optician is registered and every optometrist is qualified. The differences are about time, continuity and how much is explained — and…
• Eye tests in Cheshire without the drive to ManchesterFor a lot of Cheshire, the specialist things — the OCT scan explained properly, a dry eye clinic, myopia control for a child — have meant a…
• Independent opticians: what is actually different?People search for an independent optician when they want to feel looked after rather than processed. Here is what that should mean in…

Children

• Screen time and children’s eyes: what the evidence actually saysScreens don’t damage a child’s eyes. What they do is take the place of the one thing that protects them. That’s a different problem, and an…
• Back to school: the eye test that catches what the school check missesThe school check is a sight screen: can the child read the chart. It isn’t an eye test, and the children it misses are exactly the ones who…

Dry eye

All our dry eye guides, in order, from “is this dry eye?” to treatment →

• What causes dry eyes?Most dry eye isn’t a shortage of tears. In most people the oil glands in the eyelids are blocked, so the tears dry up in seconds. Here are…
• Dry eye symptoms: what they feel like, and when to worryDry eye rarely feels “dry”. Most people describe gritty, tired, burning eyes, eyes that water, or vision that blurs and clears when they…
• Does dry eye ever go away? An honest answerThe honest answer: most dry eye doesn’t switch off for good, but it can be controlled so well that your eyes feel normal most days. What…
• Demodex: tiny mites on your eyelashes, and what to do about themDemodex are microscopic mites that live at the roots of the eyelashes. Most adults have some, and usually they cause no problems. In larger…
• Medicines that can cause dry eyesMany everyday medicines reduce tears or change the oil in them. If your dry eye started or got worse after starting a medicine, it may be…
• Screens and dry eyes: why your eyes feel worse after a day on a screenOn a screen you blink about a third as often as normal, and many of those blinks don’t fully close. Every blink spreads oil over the tears…
• Rosacea and dry eyes (ocular rosacea)If you have rosacea, there is a good chance it affects your eyes as well. The same inflamed blood vessels that redden the cheeks run along…
• Dry eyes after cataract or laser eye surgeryDry, gritty eyes are common after cataract surgery and after laser eye surgery. For most people it settles over weeks to a few months. If…
• Warm compress for dry eyes: how to do it properlyThe simplest thing you can do for dry, gritty eyes, and the thing most people do wrong. Why heat helps, which mask to use, and a routine you can start tonight.
• Dry eyes in the morning: why your eyes are sore when you wake upWhat happens to your tears overnight, lids that don’t fully close, fans, CPAP and blepharitis, and what helps.
• Why do my eyes water when they’re dry?It sounds like a contradiction and it’s the commonest dry eye story we hear: eyes that stream in the wind and feel like sand the rest of…
• Dry eyes and the menopauseDry eyes are one of the commonest menopause symptoms and almost nobody mentions them — not the GP, not the leaflets. The hormones that…
• CPAP and dry eyesSore, gritty, red eyes every morning since the machine arrived: it’s the air. A little of it leaks up over the mask all night and dries the…
• Blepharitis: what helps tonight, and what actually fixes itBlepharitis will not clear overnight. You can make tonight and tomorrow morning a great deal more comfortable, and you can stop it coming…
• Blepharitis or dry eye? How to tell, and why most people have bothBlepharitis is the lids. Dry eye is the tears. They feel different, but in most people we see they are two ends of the same problem, and…
• Which eye drops for dry eyes? An optometrist’s honest guideThere is no single best drop. There is a best drop for your kind of dry eye, and most people are using the wrong kind. Here is how to…
• The best treatment for dry eyes depends on which kind you have. Here is each one, comparedThere is no single best treatment for dry eyes. There is a best treatment for your kind of dry eye, and most people have been given the…
• Punctal plugs for dry eyes: what they are, who they help, and who they don’tPunctal plugs keep your own tears on your eyes for longer. For the right person they make a real difference. For the most common kind of dry…
• Ikervis and other prescription drops for dry eye in the UKIkervis is a prescription anti-inflammatory drop for severe dry eye that has not settled with lubricants. It works slowly, over months, and…
• LipiFlow in the UK: what it does, and the alternativesLipiFlow is a machine that warms the eyelids from the inside and presses the oil glands to clear them. We don’t use LipiFlow. Here is what…
• Can the NHS treat dry eye? What your GP and optician can doThe NHS can help with dry eye: advice, drops, and a referral if your eyes are at risk. Treatments that clear the oil glands, such as IPL,…
• Sjögren’s syndrome and your eyes: what helpsSjögren’s syndrome reduces the tears your eyes make, so the dryness is often more severe and does not go away on its own. The right plan…
• MGD eye drops: what they do, and why clearing the glands comes firstMGD, meibomian gland dysfunction, means the oil glands in your eyelids have blocked. Drops can stand in for the oil for a while. Only…
• Can blepharitis cause blurry vision, double vision, or worse?Blurry vision that clears when you blink is one of the most common things blepharitis does. It is unsettling, and it is almost always…

Eye health

• JF Rey glasses: our honest view as a JF Rey stockistWe stock JF Rey in Middleton, Cheadle and Heald Green, and we fit them every week. Here is what the frames are actually like to wear, who…