Are you at the point that things up close are not as sharp as they used to be? So somebody suggested a pair of reading glasses to help out. That pair of +1.00 readers worked great for some time, then without warning they seem to fail, requiring you to get even a stronger pair of specs.
Is it possible that by wearing reading glasses your near vision deteriorated? Ready for the good news, you are only helping your self be wearing reading glasses. Correcting your vision does not make it worse, glasses simply bend light in a manner so it hits the back of your eye properly.
So when and why do you need reading glasses? If you are approaching 40, congratulations, you are also approaching presbyopia. Presbyopia is the medical term for loss of accommodative near vision. Basically, there is a lens inside your eye that has been doing all the focusing for you. The lens is elastic and has the ability to adjust shape and, much like a camera, focus your eye from far to near.
When you were a little kid, it was possible to focus on objects as close as a couple inches away from your eye. Try that now, go ahead and try to read this print closer and closer. Depending on your age, it may be blurry anywhere from a couple inches to almost a couple feet! Or perhaps you are already wearing reading glasses to help you see up close.
The reason you notice this is because of that focusing lens, inside your eye, that we mentioned earlier. There are three parts of the body that continue to grow throughout life: Your nose, your ears, and your crystalline lens. Your lens grows in layers, much like an onion. As it grows, your lens slowly loses its elasticity making it more difficult to focus up close. Because it is so gradual we really don’t notice it until we reach our 40’s and at that time, we reach for a pair of reading glasses.
What do reading glasses actually do? They simply magnify the image which adjusts the focal length. This allows you to see the fine details again while holding your reading material at a comfortable distance. By simply magnifying an image, it is not possible to weaken your eyesight. What many people notice is that at age 42, a pair of +1.00 readers may work great for the newspaper and dinner menus. They are happy with their new readers and not overly inconvenienced to pull them out occasionally. But then, after a few years, they seem to need them more and more. And all of a sudden that pair of +1.00 readers is being upgraded to +1.50 or +2.00.
This progression is very natural and has to do, again, with the lens inside your eye losing its accommodative ability. So what are we to do now that we need readers? That’s simple, have fun with them. Reading glasses are a fact of life today for most people over the age of 40. And the great news is that eyewear designers have made tons of fun and funky frames designed specifically for you and your reading glasses needs.
So accept the fact that you will read a lot easier with a great pair of reading glasses, and most important, realize that magnifying an image is perfectly healthy and only relaxes your eyes. Have fun with it, make sure your next pair of frames make you look and feel fabulous.
