What is the maximum strength in minus / plus range that can one normally buy in an optician shops or online by Internet? - Bobby

Cara

Generally I would say in an office, you could probably order up to a -30.00. There are a limited number of options on the lenses at that point.

As far as the internet, I have no idea at all what types of Rx limitations there are. As mentioned before regarding PD, if one were to order via internet at that type of Rx, they'd have to enclosed vital information, i.e.; monocular pupillary distance at that point.

About a +25.00 is around the practical limit for high plus lenses.

Glasseslover

How about a 3 part answer? Regarding the internet, I will defer to those who have experience. Obviously, I would have no need to go to the net and therefore don't have a clue what can or can't be done.

Regarding "optician shop" you have to divide those into chain retail and private opticals. Our chain, a so-called "superoptical" will only go to about a -12.00 or +6.00,in house & one hour. The reason for that is because we're one hour oriented we can't carry all of the specialty blanks & specialty equipment. Even though our in house equipment is brand new and state of the art, there just isn't enough demand to warrant carrying what's needed in house to produce the real strong prescriptions.

We can get anything a customer wants by sending to our central lab if the customer wants to wait, but being very candid, the super high prescriptions are usually low vision cases and those customers usually always go to specialists.

I'll defer to Cara for the third part of the answer, as she works in a private optical & that's their bailiwick.