I have a dozen pairs of ready-made reading glasses.  
Most of them no longer have the strength of the lenses marked on them.  
I do recall that they were originally marked to within 0.25 dioptre.  
How can I work out the dioptre value of each pair using home equipment?

To Andrew:
I am totally fed up with you. You are a disgusting mega-SMUG and a
BULLSHITTER par excellance.  I thought that you have finished your
"mission" on s.m.v. and might come back only at some future time, like

There seems to be a "war" here between two camps - the established
"main stream" medical camp v. the "alternative" gang.  Interestingly,
usually there are no substantive disagreements within the established
camp, but none of the current main players in the "alternative gang"

Source:  David Harrison, "New age therapies cause 'retreat from
reason'," The Sunday Telegraph, August 8, 2007
Prof Dawkins says that alternative remedies constitute little more
than a "money-spinning, multi-million pound industry that impoverishes

Dear Absolutely Bates,
Subject: Does reading "strain" induce a negative
refractive STATE -- or not?
Is this the type of problem that Bates described.

My daughter has infrequently said that her glasses make her see
worse.  That complaint has applied to both new and old prescriptions.
This isn't every time, of course.  Usually her glasses do what they're
supposed to do.

My doc is suggesting that the SLT treatment might be helpful for my
glaucoma - it is pretty well controlled with just Timolol.
What experience with this is out there?

I just picked up a new pair of glasses from Lenscrafters.  They
recommended Polycarbonate because it was apparently shatterproof etc
etc.  My prescription is -5 and -5.25, so I think that's fairly high.
The frames are a lot smaller, almost a 40% smaller than my old (13 yr

I came across a very interesting posts when I stumbled across it by
accident. Tell me what do you thinik?
Has the situation gotted out of hand?
http://groups.google.com/group/sci.med.vision/browse_thread/thread/23a84081854a3
843/f5780d5605b5d279#f5780d5605b5d279

I'm looking for something to splash in my eyes before removing my RGP
lenses at night.  I don't want any fancy ingredients, just to make sure
they are "unstuck" since they tend to be a little dry at the end of the
day.  I thought some kind of soft contact solution might work, but ...

My father is in his 70's and has recently undergone cataract surgery
on his left eye and as a result his eyesight is much improved.
However, he quickly noticed after surgery that he had 'something' at
the left hand edge of his vision that wasn't there before.  He

Dear Second-opinion friends,
Here is a short quiz developed by Dr. Julie Ralls, MD.
There is a CONSISTENT under-current in medicine and
optometry -- to the effect that a negative refractive STATE for

    I recently went to the eye doctor and got a prescription for
glasses and contact lenses. My first appointment, he gave me my
glasses prescription which was:
OD: Sphere -1.75

It is very clear that the Bates method has never, not once been
disproven by anyone.
In fact, each argument raised by his opponents are always wrong. But
is anybody here intelligent enough to actually disprove him, even on