Does everyone need reading glasses eventually?

[jj2me]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

Everyone needs reading glasses when they get into their mid 40s.

Originally Posted by dwig

Don't worry, but not everyone every needs reading glasses. There are three broad classes of people that don't:

1. Those that are blind
2. Those that fail to live to middle age
3. Those who are sufficiently near sighted enough to read w/o glasses though they need glasses for distant vision.

Not true. 67 here, and three months ago my eye doctor pronounced, "Perfect vision in one eye, slightly nearsighted in the other."

As I began to suffer the onset of "far-sighted of the aged" sometime in my late 50s, I forced myself to exercise my near vision. I play maybe 20 minutes of solitaire most every day on a PDA with brightness turned down, and with the PDA held very close to my face. Sometimes it takes a bit of strain and blinking to focus properly, but the end result is that I've maintained enough near vision at this age to be able to read fine print. When I told my eye doctor what I've been doing, expecting to be admonished, he just said, "Good idea!"

Three years ago I met someone at a high school reunion who was 62 and had perfect near and far vision, better than mine. She was a school teacher by trade, so maybe something about that occupation helped her.

My trick may not work for everyone, as I've always had good vision (20/12 at age 20).

[Apache]

I am the opposite. I need glasses to read and work up close. For distance I see as well as I did when I was 20. My bifocals are for reading and working. The tops are clear since I do not need help seeing at distance. My wife asked my why I did not just use a pair of cheap reading glasses. Unfortunately, I work as a bench jeweler. With Bifocals I do not have to take my glasses on and off when working. With reading glasses I would have to remove them every time I needed to find burs or other tools on my bench.
Apache

[cromag]

Got my first reading glasses (+1.00) when I was 39. Over the years I gradually increased the strength (now at +2.75) and, as of a few months ago at age 62, I now have my first pair of prescription glasses for wearing all the time -- but I mostly just wear them when I'm driving or watching TV.

On the other hand, I have always had the best eyes in the family. My Dad was legally blind in one eye, one of my sisters made the cover of an ophthalmologist magazine in the 60s, etc., so I wasn't surprised.

[pidgeon92]

Originally Posted by dwig

1. Those that are blind
2. Those that fail to live to middle age
3. Those who are sufficiently near sighted enough to read w/o glasses though they need glasses for distant vision.

I'm a #3 as well. I've been near-sighted all my life. I started wearing contacts at 16, and could see everything just fine. I had to give up my contacts at 40, they dried out within a couple of hours. Now I wear glasses all the time, except to read. I started wearing contacts again last year to go to the gym, and when I have them in I can't read at all. My optometrist told me that if I wanted to read while using them, I'd need to get reading glasses.

[webroot]

Originally Posted by herebedragons69

I went all in when I got my first tablet (Asus Transformer) and I got rid of all my paper books. I find it takes me a lot longer to get through a book on a tablet as opposed to the paper books. I tend to fall asleep and since I've been reading on tablets my eyesight has gotten poor. Maybe that's just a coincidence.

I am 44 and everyone tells me that requiring reading glasses at this age is not unusual., but it worries me. Now I read on an ipad but I still have the same problems. Is this a common occurrence?

Even if you are 40+ dont just blindly believe what doctors are saying, more than your well-being their are interested in money, a recurring patient. So if you are healed, thats the end of their business, its like conventional marketing tactic you need to stick with previous buyers as the chances of new buyer is not high. Hard to believe that there is no way they can treat your eyes.

Keep a strict eye distance while reading otherwise eyes sight will permanently adjust for short range. Dont read for longer, this is similar to siting posture when body gets stiff when we sat in same position for long.

Thinking causes blurring of eyes, so any kind of activity that springs up mental activity more, then you are not looking at objects around but always focused inside inner image.

NOTE: this is from my personal experience.

[pdurrant]

Originally Posted by jj2me

Not true. 67 here, and three months ago my eye doctor pronounced, "Perfect vision in one eye, slightly nearsighted in the other."

How much 'slightly'? -2 perhaps? Natural mono-vision, one eye for distance, one eye for near.

[crich70]

I've worn glasses since I was 5 (astigmatism in both eyes), but then a few yrs back the Dr. changed my prescription to bi-focals so I never had to worry about needing reading glasses. Eyes age just like every other part of the body.

[cromag]

BTW, I should mention that I got a pair with "progressive lenses" -- the lower part of the lens is for near focus and the upper part for distant focus.

Well, I've been wearing them for a couple of months now, and I cannot get used to them! I really get bothered by the differences when I'm walking, for instance, and the area in front of me is in focus but the area at my feet is out of focus (unless I turn my head down). I've tripped over more curbs, lately! Besides, when I sit down to read I read for lengthy periods, and I'm most comfortable with my eyes are straight ahead, so I still really need to switch to reading glasses, anyway. The next pair will be conventional glasses.

[disconnected]

Originally Posted by cromag

BTW, I should mention that I got a pair with "progressive lenses" -- the lower part of the lens is for near focus and the upper part for distant focus.

Well, I've been wearing them for a couple of months now, and I cannot get used to them! I really get bothered by the differences when I'm walking, for instance, and the area in front of me is in focus but the area at my feet is out of focus (unless I turn my head down). I've tripped over more curbs, lately! Besides, when I sit down to read I read for lengthy periods, and I'm most comfortable with my eyes are straight ahead, so I still really need to switch to reading glasses, anyway. The next pair will be conventional glasses.

That happened to me the first time I got progressive lenses. The ground undulated in front of me so I tried to climb imaginary hills, and trees jumped out at me.

A "trainee" had done the tests and when I went back to the doctor (after trying for weeks to get used to the glasses) he said that the difference between what would be optimum for reading and what would be optimum for distance was too great to handle. So I had to compromise on both ends, but it was a big improvement. It didn't take very long to get used to the new lenses.

[mlewis78]

I needed reading glasses starting in my early 30s. Had been wearing glasses for near-sightedness since about age 10. Now at age 63, my reading lenses are a lot stronger. I get the computer distance lenses, because I need them for work and playing music, and I don't hold my reader close up to my face. I wear varilux progressives for walking around.

[Lin2412]

In college, we were told by our professor that if both our parents needed reading glasses, we have a higher chance to also need reading glasses as we grow older. That's very applicable to my case. (To be honest I don't mind because I used to like to tag along with my mother in picking up her choice of frames)

[jj2me]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

How much 'slightly'? -2 perhaps? Natural mono-vision, one eye for distance, one eye for near.

I don't know how much. But how can it be natural mono vision, if one eye still has perfect vision? It must still be working for both tasks.

I read your post with either eye this morning using Tapatalk on a 4.7" phone. That's small print, and I also had a night filter applied (meaning the screen's brightness is very low, with the app set to about 75% opacity). That's definitely not -2.

The 62-year old woman I referenced in my previous post could read fine print using either eye and had better far vision with either eye than I had. I think if you looked, you could find many examples of people over their mid-40s that don't need glasses, contrary to your claim. Discounting me because of the "one eye slightly nearsighted" (even though I don't wear glasses), I found an example of perfect vision over 60.

[patrickt]

Originally Posted by dwig

Don't worry, but not everyone every needs reading glasses. There are three broad classes of people that don't:

1. Those that are blind
2. Those that fail to live to middle age
3. Those who are sufficiently near sighted enough to read w/o glasses though they need glasses for distant vision.

As you age your eyes loss their ability to accommodate to different distances. Accomodation involves for focusing and slightly rotating the eyes inward or outward to align the two images at varying distances. The age related change involves focus. Your eyes become nearly fixed focus with age and you require different strength correction lenses for each distance range (read: multiple sets of glasses or bi/trifocals). If you require no correction for distance then only reading glasses are required, at least at first.

I, myself, fall into #3, above, and require one correction for distance, another for "computer screen distance", but no correction for normal small print reading. When I was in my 40s and early 50s I could read small print with my "computer" glasses but now at 63yrs my focusing range has narrowed to the point that I need to remove my glasses to read normal text on a handheld device (tablet, eReader, ...), printed books, or the d@#n small labels at the grocery store. Altogether, growing older is better than the alternative.

You forgot the millions of people who don't read.

[pdurrant]

Originally Posted by jj2me

I don't know how much. But how can it be natural mono vision, if one eye still has perfect vision? It must still be working for both tasks.

I read your post with either eye this morning using Tapatalk on a 4.7" phone. That's small print, and I also had a night filter applied (meaning the screen's brightness is very low, with the app set to about 75% opacity). That's definitely not -2.

The 62-year old woman I referenced in my previous post could read fine print using either eye and had better far vision with either eye than I had. I think if you looked, you could find many examples of people over their mid-40s that don't need glasses, contrary to your claim. Discounting me because of the "one eye slightly nearsighted" (even though I don't wear glasses), I found an example of perfect vision over 60.

I am reluctant to contradict your personal experience. If you assert that at 67 you have perfect distance vision in one eye, and yet can also read a 4.7" phone with that same eye (presumably holding the phone no more than 18 inches away), I have to concede that presbyopia seems not to be the universal condition that I thought it was. I have never heard of a 67-year-old retaining any amount of accommodation before.

I will clarify what I said, though, since you seem to have not quite understood what I meant.

By mono vision, I meant that you had one eye (the one with 'perfect vision') for distance vision, and the other (the slightly short-sighted one) for near vision. Some people with presbyopia (which is the condition we're discussing) choose to have glasses or contact lenses that produce this effect deliberately. It seemed to me that the way you described your vision, you have this effect naturally, thus 'natural mono vision'.

By '-2' I meant that your short-sighted eye might be short-sighted by an amount of 2 diopters. That is, its furthest focal point might be around 50cm. This would mean that you would be able to focus with this eye on things held around 50cm away from you, just as if you have normal distance vision and had +2 reading glasses.


And when talking about 'perfect vision', people almost always mean distance vision.

However, once again, I will defer to your personal experience, and change my claim from 'everyone' to 'very nearly everyone'.

As I say, I have never before heard of a case of a 60+ year old having any accommodation (the ability to change the focus of the eye) left at all. So I am very surprised.

[jj2me]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

I am reluctant to contradict your personal experience. If you assert that at 67 you have perfect distance vision in one eye, and yet can also read a 4.7" phone with that same eye (presumably holding the phone no more than 18 inches away), I have to concede that presbyopia seems not to be the universal condition that I thought it was. I have never heard of a 67-year-old retaining any amount of accommodation before.

I will clarify what I said, though, since you seem to have not quite understood what I meant.

By mono vision, I meant that you had one eye (the one with 'perfect vision') for distance vision, and the other (the slightly short-sighted one) for near vision. Some people with presbyopia (which is the condition we're discussing) choose to have glasses or contact lenses that produce this effect deliberately. It seemed to me that the way you described your vision, you have this effect naturally, thus 'natural mono vision'.

By '-2' I meant that your short-sighted eye might be short-sighted by an amount of 2 diopters. That is, its furthest focal point might be around 50cm. This would mean that you would be able to focus with this eye on things held around 50cm away from you, just as if you have normal distance vision and had +2 reading glasses.


And when talking about 'perfect vision', people almost always mean distance vision.

However, once again, I will defer to your personal experience, and change my claim from 'everyone' to 'very nearly everyone'.

As I say, I have never before heard of a case of a 60+ year old having any accommodation (the ability to change the focus of the eye) left at all. So I am very surprised.

The primary intention of my original post was to relate my trick in exercising my eyes to fight off the "far sighted of the aged," which apparently has been working (after a few days with no close work, I require more time to regain my near focus via this exercising). It might work for others (it didn't for my nephew, who may have started too late).

My eye doctor is the one who said "perfect vision" in one eye. I don't know what that means, maybe he said it that way considering my age. Perhaps it was just a way of saying that eye didn't need corrective lenses for reading and tested 20/20 on distance. I know my vision has definitely deteriorated from when it was 20/12. But I don't need glasses, or at least my eye doctor doesn't write me a prescription. Trying each eye on distance shows they both do ok enough. Similarly with near. Occasionally some fine print, like gray on black, forces me to pull out a magnifying glass.

I'm a slow reader. My theory is that perhaps people who focus sharply on things (like a slow reader focuses on each word), can retain vision better than those who don't focus sharply, like speed readers. The 62-year-old school teacher with perfect vision (my term for her abilities) perhaps has the perfect mix of near and far focus exercise during her day, reading a lot and slowly, and looking sharply at her students.

P.S. I did understand what you meant by mono vision. I was just saying that apparently one eye must still be functioning on both near and far. Otherwise, at my age, it would have deteriorated quickly into its mono function.