Do you want *Coke bottle bottoms* or normal eyeglasses?

A few days ago, a couple brought their young son – let's call him "Billy - to the Optician to have him fitted for his first pair of eyeglasses.

The good news is that he didn't have to settle for "Buddy Holly" glasses – but I'm getting ahead of myself…. Instead of going to a mall-based eyeglass superstore, they went to a local optician, where the lenses would be manufactured and ground onsite. (The eyeglass superstores are typically operated by optometrists, who send the lenses out to be ground.)

This would prove to be a decision of major consequence, although the couple had no idea at the moment. What they didn't know – and what many people don't know – is that an Optician (an optics technician), working with the proper equipment, can achieve the correct prescription with much thinner lenses than normally come out of the eyeglass "factories" that produce lenses for the eyeglass superstores.

Even though his eyes required significant correction, the lenses that were ground for Billy at the optics lab were a normal thickness. They were not the "Coke-bottle bottoms" that they otherwise would have been. The glasses were a normal eyeglass weight – not ten-pound monsters that would have been extremely uncomfortable for a child to wear while playing. And they were normal-looking, rather than "nerd" glasses, like Buddy Holly wore back in 1958 when he was singing "Peggy Sue" and "That'll Be The Day" … the kind of glasses that Billy's schoolmates would have teased him about (perhaps to the point at which he would have no longer been willing to wear them). So Billy got "normal" eyeglasses – glasses that were attractive and easy to wear.

Glasses whose only noteworthy feature (to Billy) was that they helped him to see better. Glasses that would elicit comments from schoolmates no stronger than "You got glasses." Three "O" overview. There are three "O's" in the world of eye care – Ophthalmologists, Optometrists, and Opticians. Generally speaking, their areas of expertise are as follows: Ophthalmologists perform eye surgery, treat eye injuries, diagnose and treat eye disease, and perform eye examinations. Optometrists perform eye examinations and can diagnose and treat minor eye injuries and disease.

Opticians grind the lenses to the proper prescription and "fit" the eyeglasses to the wearer, so that the eyeglasses provide the best possible vision. The best rule of thumb – see the provider who specializes in the service you need. So now you know!