With that Rx (high plus) you absolutely must avoid polycarbonate lens
material. A 1.60 or 1.67 material should be OK (1.60 will have better
optics, but 1.67 will be thinner and lighter).

I would go with a premium progressive lens design from Zeiss, Rodenstock,
Varilux, J&J, Hoya, etc. That means stay away from chains like LensCrafters,
EyeMasters, Pearle, Sears, Penny's, etc who only carry store brands, which
are mediocre designs. Wal-Mart/Sams does carry some premium lenses, but the
selection may be limited (and make sure you avoid polycarbonate).

If you get AR coating, get a premium one like Crizal, unless you are
absolutely sure that your lenses will be replaced in 2 years.

With such a high prescription differential beween the two eyes, why are
you not considering contact lenses?  What is the prescription and the
best correctable vision in the O.S.?  With todays sft lens options
available, there couls still be a chance that you could get some
useable vision out of the O.S..

Otherwise, I agree with the other post for high index lenses with A/R
coating for best possible vision.

--Dr. Tom

Dear Sunnycat,

Subject: plus prescription

sunny> the hardest decisions are type of lenses,
coatings , are they worth the money for
my prescription...of course i need polarized
sunglasses.

odis> in your case, you are dramatically past the
"threshhold" where any preventive efforts will
work.  At this point, further use of the plus lens
WILL result in "stair-case hyperopia" as is always
proven by a mountain of scientific data.

You should look to the majority-opinion OD
who first put you in that "wretched plus"
during the emmetropization process.

This is the PROVEN dynamic nature of the
fundamental eye.

You will get many dissenting opinions here.
I would highly recommend that you ignore them
and seek out a highly qualified "second opinion"
OD like:

   www.chinymyanus.org

He is one of a number of highly trained OD's who
researched the PROVEN nature of the
fundamental eye and is using the "objective"
(scientific NOT medical) evidence in prevention
with his own children.

Best,

Odis
Ingenue

Getting an anti-reflective coating (multicoat) is well worthwhile. So is
getting an aspheric lens, ground into the smallest frame you are
comfortable with. A high index lens will help but isn't as important as
getting a specially ground aspheric lens. On the other hand you don't
want to go too small or the progressive lens won't fit!

Even if you don't want to become a contact lens wearer, you could ask
your optometrist to insert a trial contact lens just for the purposes of
choosing your frame, and to remove it when you've chosen!

Dom