Frequently, middle-aged people start to have a difficult time reading. This is why: With age, your eye's lens becomes less flexible, making it challenging to focus on handheld objects. The clinical term for this is presbyopia. And it's universal.
In an effort to prevent eyestrain, people with untreated presbyopia tend to hold reading material at arm's length to be able to focus properly. Additionally, engaging in other tasks at close range, for example, sewing or writing, may also cause headaches, eyestrain or fatigue. When treating presbyopia, you have several alternatives available, which take your eyewear preferences into account.
Reading glasses are great but are only efficient for those who wear contacts or for people who don't need to wear glasses for distance vision. These are readily available, but it is not recommended to purchase a pair until you have been examined by your eye care professional. Lots of people don't know that reading glasses may help for brief blocks of reading time but they can cause fatigue with extended use.
If you would rather not have to wear more than one pair of glasses, consider bifocal or multi-focal corrective lenses, or PALs (progressive addition lenses), which are quite popular. Essentially, these are eyeglasses that have separate points of focus; the lower section helps you see at close range. If you already wear contacts, it's worthwhile to talk to your optometrist to discuss multifocal contact lenses, or a treatment approach which is called monovision, where you wear one contact lens to correct near sightedness in one eye and another to correct far sightedness in the other eye.
But, you may have to periodically adjust your prescriptions, because your eyes and vision slowly change over time. But it's also important to research your options before making choices about your vision; presbyopia can affect you, even if you've had refractive surgery.
We recommend you speak to your eye doctor for a helpful perspective. We can give you the tools to help you deal with presbyopia and your changing vision in a way that is best for you.