R C Cunning

#yelpmission
My eyesight is BAD! I’m very near-​sighted with astigmatism in both eyes. I had to get contacts at 13 because glasses couldn’t correct my eyesight; and of course hard (gas permeable) lenses are my only option if I want good vision.
I have moved quite a bit since I was 13 and in every new location, finding a good optician is more important than finding a hairdresser — hair grows back! I have often found that some opticians have a bit of an ego and want to try new things or see if they can get a better fit than my existing lenses. They rarely do. So, I don’t want to go to a high street chain and see a different optician every time I go. When I moved to Falkirk, I couldn’t find a contact lens specialist so I looked further afield and came across RC Cunning: long established, only 2 doctors in the practice and listed contact lens fitting as their speciality. That was over 10 years ago and I still won’t go anywhere else although now it’s handier since I’ve moved to Edinburgh.
In all that time I have only seen 3 different opticians (Mr Cunnings has semi-​retired) and they have all been friendly, efficient, thorough and excellent at explaining everything they are doing and all my options. At one point, I was given a free pair of the ‘new’ torque lenses to try — soft lenses that are thicker in places to accommodate an astigmatism. Great to give them a free trial as I found out they didn’t work for me — but the optician was happy for me to have a go and just as happy to admit that my current fit for the hard lenses is great without making any unnecessary changes. The biggest challenge though has been my eye glass prescription. Glasses just don’t give me good vision and they have been so diligent in trying to get me the best possible solution. Hard contact lenses apparently flatten down the eye, but when I wear glasses, the eye eventually goes back to normal (well, somewhat). They realised that popping out my lenses before my eye test would mean I would get a prescription for my ‘flattened’ eye surface, but after a few hours, the vision from the glasses wouldn’t be as good. My existing glasses weren’t good enough to wear every day for a week, so again, I got a free pair of soft lenses to wear for 7 days before going back and redoing the eye test for glasses. Seemed to work as they managed to get my best glasses prescription ever.
So what does this level of service and dedication cost? Surprisingly not much. The eye test for glasses was covered by the NHS and I pay around £22 a month for my lenses (I get a new pair posted to my house every year after my prescription is rechecked and updated) — I’ve never been asked to pay any extra. Their glasses are expensive as they only carry high end frames so I just have them print out my prescription and I head over to a high street chain that offers multi-​pair deals.