Your Vision As You Get Older

Are You Getting Older?
Do you still feel young but are having trouble reading your newspaper or the computer screen?

It’s no coincidence that

1. Eyeglass lens manufacturers are spending millions and millions of dollars researching and developing the “perfect” no-line bifocal or progressive lens.
2. Contact lens manufacturers are rushing to find that elusive “perfect” bifocal contact lens.
3. Researchers are attempting to find the “perfect” surgical cure or correction for what is commonly called presbyopia or “aging eyes.”

For people over forty, age hits like a ton of bricks.  One of the first signs of aging is eyestrain while reading. Even if you’ve never needed glasses for distance vision, decreasing comfort while reading is inevitable as you age.  When presbyopia is noticed once must take into consideration many factors.  Some of these are occupation, size of your pupils, length of your arms, whether you are nearsighted (myopic) or farsighted (hyperopic), and lighting issues.  But at one time or another after age forty, we will all need help with reading.

So what are our options?
They range from the simple to the more complex.  But all should involve an eye examination to determine if there are any eye health issues causing the decrease in vision.

The simple solution is reading glasses.
Since most of us do not have equal vision in our two eyes, I rarely recommend the over-the-counter (OTC) “drugstore” type for the bulk of your reading.  These drugstore magnifiers are OK as simple magnifiers to read maps or a menu but do not address the issues of astigmatism or balance between the eyes.  Quality issues are another reason not to buy OTC magnifiers.  Some are of acceptable quality but the general consumer has no way to tell the better magnifiers from the ones with distortion in the lenses.  The best lenses are those prescribed by your eye doctor.

Another solution is progressive lenses or bifocals.
These lenses provide excellent vision at distance and near and in the case of progressives, you get the mid range too.  Adaptation is easy for most people especially with the technologically advanced progressives that are available today.  I hear this every day.  “My husband couldn’t get use to his progressive glasses when he tried it five years ago so I don’t think I want to try them.” This is not acceptable to me in my practice.  First of all, saying progressive is like saying car.  All progressives are not alike.  There was a commercial on TV a few years back about a young man and women looking for a car.  The catch phrase for the commercial was “This is not your father’s Chevy.”  This is so true.  I use this statement every day in my office as it relates to progressives and even to contact lenses.  Today’s progressives are not the same as they were years ago.  In our office we only used advanced technology lenses and adaptation is around 99%. I could not say this five years ago.  Progressive lenses have improved tremendously.  I wear them myself and I know the difference.  But buyer beware.  There is still what I will call the generic or 1980 era progressives being sold to consumers who want to save a buck.  They are cheaper (sometimes) and they work (sometimes) but they do not provide the same visual comfort as the newer technology lenses.

At Optix, we will only provide for our patients the lenses that we will wear ourselves.

Solution three is contact lenses.
There are many possible ways that contact lenses can be fitted to provide for improved reading ability.  That’s the topic for another post.

And the solution that everyone is talking about is laser vision correction. At the present time, laser surgeons do not have an answer for presbyopia.  Other surgical procedures are being tested at this time.

Suffice it to say that there are more choices for vision correction than meets the eye.  So, you don’t have to feel old because you are having trouble reading.  Just join the millions of boomers and let your eye doctor help you choose the solution that’s best for you.

-Dr. Joel Kestenbaum

OPTIX- Serving Plainview, Woodbury, Old-Bethpage, Jericho, Melville, Roslyn, Hicksville, Syosset and the Long Island Community!