Do They Check Your Pupillary Distance During a Contact Lens Fitting?
October 2nd, 2010 | See the Top Answers to this Question Below
So a few days ago my bf got glasses on sale and they measured his PD at the actual place where he purchased his glasses. I have a prescription that I got for contacts and glasses, but they didn’t check mine when I went to buy from the same place. Did they forget or is the PD covered as part of the contacts fitting? They have my actual prescription so I can’t check it at the moment, but hopefully someone knows if any of the machines used to fit contacts also measure that distance?
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Do they check it for your EXAM? Yes. That’s because the examiner needs to know the pupil distance in order to set his instrument for the exam. Do they use that measurement in fitting the contacts? No.
The PD , (pupillary distance) is only needed for glasses, not for contacts.
That measurement is never taken for contacts.
It is normally taken by the optician at the time you are ordering glasses though.
Some optometrists write it on the prescription , so it may have been on there.
No the PD(pupillary distance) is not required during CL assessment for the CL bit of the examination.
In spectacles it IS a requirement because they have to put the ‘optical centre’ of each of the spectacle lenses in front of your pupil centre (hence the measurement here is needed). When the optical centre and pupil centre coincide your glasses will give best visual clarity.
With CLs, the distance between pupils not required. However sometimes we do measure the size of pupil in CL assessment. Again it isnt something that has to e done necessarily every time.
But they shouldn’t be making up your glasses without a PD (especially so in higher prescriptions) so please ask them to explain whether they did or didnt. Or whether they had it from a previous eye check, in which case it may have still been good practice to double check it.
Hope that helps.
A wise doctor will take the pd before he uses the refractor.
How else can he know how to set the instrument?