Get Weaker Glasses Online
at 39 Dollar Glasses!

When you're doing eye exercises, it's really important that you either stop wearing your glasses for as much as you can, or step down to a weaker prescription. That's so that your eyes truly are being exercised all day long - and not just being overstressed and fatigued by your current lenses.

• Weak to moderate correction - If you need a correction of about 3 diopters or less, you can probably get away with going glasses-free most of your day. It will feel weird at first and the whole world will seem blurry, but you'll very quickly acclimatize. Importantly, though, you must still wear full prescription glasses for dangerous tasks like driving.
  
  
• Moderate to strong correction - If you are corrected by more than 3 diopters, then it might be too much to go without. So Rebuild Your Vision recommends you switch down to an older, weaker pair or buy some cheap glasses online. (No need to fork out hundreds for a pair that will only last you a few weeks - because you will soon outgrow them!)

I found an excellent source of good quality glasses online called 39 Dollar Glasses. They have a huge range of frames and offer all the extras that your optometrist does. The difference is, it's way cheaper; often just one tenth of the price.

The Safe Way to Self Prescribe

To obtain an accurate, self prescribed pair of lenses, here's what you should do:

1. Get an up-to-date eye test. This is really important because you need an accurate starting point. When your optometrist offers to sell you some expenses new glasses, politely decline and take your prescription away.
   
   
2. Go to the website, 39 Dollar Glasses, and choose a pair of frames you like. When it comes to entering your prescription, you need to make it slightly weaker. Rebuild Your Vision recommends reducing each eye by 0.50 diopters and if you have astigmatism, ignore it up to 1.00 diopter, under correcting larger amounts by a third. Enter all the other details, like pupillary distance, exactly the same as they appear on your prescription.

Your new glasses will arrive the next day (in the USA) or within a week internationally. You should wear them any time you need them, or go without altogether if you can! Remember though, you must wear a full prescription pair while driving and performing other potentially dangerous activities.

Keep getting your eyes professionally tested every 1-2 months while doing eye exercises (or just when you feel it's time) and revisit 39 Dollar Glasses for your next pair at a fraction of the usual price. I went through three pairs of glasses while doing eye exercises, until I eventually had a weak -1.00 diopter pair for driving. That's about as weak as lenses come! When you reach this stage, you're done :)

Buying Cheap Glasses Online: The Pros & Cons

I know some of you may have reservations about buying your glasses, contact lenses and even prescription sunglasses from an online discount store. So I've summarized my personal experience of 39 Dollar Glasses below.

First, let's look at the positives about buying glasses online:

• Cheap, Cheap, Cheap - Of course, this is the number one reason for buying your glasses online. It will save you an absolute bundle. I am so tired of getting ripped off by offline optometrists, who charged hundreds of dollars for separate frames, lenses and add-ons that I never wanted. Then they dupe you into buying a second pair for "only $50" which makes you wonder just how big their mark-ups are in the first place.
  
  
• Huge Range of Styles - I was very impressed by the range of frames available, and was able to pick a very simple pair that I knew would suit me (Roma, featured right). They also have lots of tools to see what the glasses look like with any given hair color or face shape - and you can even print out a life-size image to put up to your face. Here are the main categories of glasses available:
  
  

  Metal Eyeglasses Plastic Eyeglasses Prescription Sunglasses Semi-Rimless Eyeglasses

  Rimless Eyeglasses Kids Eyeglasses Bifocals, Progressives & Varilux Bendable Titanium Eyeglasses

  
  
• High Quality Lenses - With every $39 order, 39 Dollar Glasses gives you light and thin prescription lenses, 100% UV protection, tough scratch-resistant coatings and a 100% quality guarantee. You can also get anti-reflective coatings or transition lenses for a modest additional cost.
  
  
• Next Day Delivery - Amazingly, 39 Dollar Glasses offers next day delivery. That is impressive. My old optometrist would take 7-10 days to come up with my new glasses. International shipping is also very fast - I received my new prescription glasses in 7 days (which from the US to New Zealand, is about as fast as international mail gets).

Now, here are the disadvantages I found with buying cheap glasses online:

• No Professional Eye Test - The only place you can get your eyesight properly tested is with an optometrist. It's not that 39 Dollar Glasses have failed us in any way here, it's just a fact. The best thing to do is find an eye test coupon (perhaps in your local paper) and get a cheap test. When they try to upsell you expensive new glasses, politely decline and take your new prescription to 39 Dollar Glasses for one tenth of the cost.
  
  
• Only 70% Refund Available - If your online glasses are faulty, you can return them for a 100% refund. However, if you decide you don't like the style of the frame, or that you input your prescription details wrong, you can only claim a 70% refund of the purchase price. I guess that is the nature of bespoke lenses. On the plus side, they do offer to remake your glasses in a new frame for just 30% of the regular price.
  
  

All in all, I am very impressed with 39 Dollar Glasses. They offer cheap glasses online that serve their purpose (in this case, as a stepping stone to a weaker pair, and eventually no glasses at all) as well as living up to my expectations of quality. I have no problem recommending them to support your vision training.

Save a Further $12 at 39 Dollar Glasses

I've found a $12 coupon to help you save further money while you're at it! To redeem it, just follow any of the links from this page to the 39 Dollar Glasses website and enter the code "Twitter" at the checkout. This coupon will never expire, so you can tuck it away and use it as many times as you want. Enjoy!