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I saw this one website that says "almost 100%" of people over the age of 45 need reading glasses... Something about the eye losing the ability to focus on close objects as we age. I find it hard to believe that it's a universal thing. There HAS to be some exceptions? What if you are extremely healthy and consume extra Vitamin A and Lutein (important for eye health)? I'm in my late 20's now and I am very near-sighted. You would make fun of me if you saw how close I am holding my phone to my face as I'm typing this. So I'm curious what will happen when I get older.
I know someone who is 81 and does not wear glasses for reading, nor need hearing aids either.
I saw this one website that says "almost 100%" of people over the age of 45 need reading glasses... Something about the eye losing the ability to focus on close objects as we age. I find it hard to believe that it's a universal thing. There HAS to be some exceptions? What if you are extremely healthy and consume extra Vitamin A and Lutein (important for eye health)? I'm in my late 20's now and I am very near-sighted. You would make fun of me if you saw how close I am holding my phone to my face as I'm typing this. So I'm curious what will happen when I get older.
No. And it's for the exact reason you mentioned. I have worked in ophthalmology for more than a decade, and I have educated many patients about this. If your prescription is > or = -3.00 or thereabouts, you won't need reading glasses. Why? Because with presbyopia, the lens in the back of your eye loses the elasticity but with myopia, (nearsightness) which is a different condition in which the eyeball is physically too long, light rays are directed in front of the retina. So the nearsightedness can compensate for the presbyopia, and you can just take your glasses off to read. It's simple math. Say your prescription is -2.50, and you're 50 years old. You need about a +2.00 add to read up close. So you just add the +2.00 to the -2.50 that you need to see far, and you take the glasses off, Bingo, no reading glasses needed because there's only a -0.50 differential.
Things get more complicated when you develop cararacts because the clouding of the lens of your eye makes you more nearsighted over time. So if were a -2.50 when you were 35 years old, and now you're 65 with a cataract, it's quite likely you're prescription will be -4.00 now just because of the cataract. If you get that nearsighted, sometimes the reading glasses help, but just because your distance vision is impaired due to too much nearsightedness, and not because your near vision is impaired, as in presbyopia.
Nearly 100% is probably about right. Everyone I know who never needed glasses before their 40s needed them for reading. Very nearsighted people, like my DH. can see close up better without his glasses, and his Aunt who is in her 70s has never needed glasses because one of her eyes is nearsighted and one is farsighted, so she has natural mono vision.
Once you get cataracts then you can have surgery for that. You will no longer need glasses of any kind then. Or so I am told.
Has someone already told you that you are mistaken? I had cataracts removed and then needed reading glasses. What a person is told and reality is sometimes different.
My father is in his early 70's. He recently had an eye exam. He doesn't need reading glasses. He has a pair he sometimes wears for driving and distances.
I'm extremely nearsighted and have been so for a long time--I started wearing eyeglasses in 1963. I started wearing contacts in 1972 (the hard kind). By that time, my vision was 20/400+. Twenty years later, my vision was so bad that without my glasses, I could not even tell that there was anything printed on the eye chart.
My natural point of focus was about six inches from my eye, and the range of focus is about five inches to seven inches from my eyes. I was one of those guys who took my glasses off to see really close up, but couldn't see a darned thing farther away.
Since my mid 40s, that range has decreased to maybe six to seven inches. With corrective lenses (-8.25 diopters), that meant I could no longer read text at 20 inches without bifocals. But I can still take off my glasses and see sharply in that five-to-seven-inch range.
I tried a number of styles of bifocal contacts, but discovered that bifocal contacts are for people who want to look good, not for people who want to see well. All bifocal contact designs constantly present both sharp and unsharp images, and you have to learn to ignore the unsharp part you're not interested in at the moment.
I find that a great deal more disconcerting than the transition of areas of sharpness presented by bifocal eyeglasses, so in my old age I've gone back to eyeglasses. Also, I find the ability to peer over the top of my glasses to see very close objects valuable--which I can't do with contacts.
LASIK was never an option for me. My pupils are too large. In addition, a large enough percentage of people wind up with unplesant night vision artifacts that it was never worth the risk to me.
No. And it's for the exact reason you mentioned. I have worked in ophthalmology for more than a decade, and I have educated many patients about this. If your prescription is > or = -3.00 or thereabouts, you won't need reading glasses. Why? Because with presbyopia, the lens in the back of your eye loses the elasticity but with myopia, (nearsightness) which is a different condition in which the eyeball is physically too long, light rays are directed in front of the retina. So the nearsightedness can compensate for the presbyopia, and you can just take your glasses off to read. It's simple math. Say your prescription is -2.50, and you're 50 years old. You need about a +2.00 add to read up close. So you just add the +2.00 to the -2.50 that you need to see far, and you take the glasses off, Bingo, no reading glasses needed because there's only a -0.50 differential.
No.
My vision has been -8+ diopters for 40+ years. It still is...and I do need bi-focals with a different correction for near distance because my range of vision has decreased with age.
The only way what you're saying would happen by coincidence to be true is if normal reading range happens to bewell within the person's overall myopic range. If he could see at 20 inches without glasses when he was young, he may be able to see at twenty inches when he is older.
But if 20 inches was already beyond his range of vision when younger, it will not correct itself to 20 inches when he is older.
My vision has been -8+ diopters for 40+ years. It still is...and I do need bi-focals with a different correction for near distance because my range of vision has decreased with age.
The only way what you're saying would happen by coincidence to be true is if normal reading range happens to bewell within the person's overall myopic range. If he could see at 20 inches without glasses when he was young, he may be able to see at twenty inches when he is older.
But if 20 inches was already beyond his range of vision when younger, it will not correct itself to 20 inches when he is older.
Yeah what Scooby Snacks posted didn't make any kind of sense to me, because it doesn't even almost kind of reflect my experience.
"Better than" 20/20 vision when I was young - I could read a book at a normal distance from my eyes, and I could ALSO read it several inches further away than that, AND a couple inches closer than that, all without any strain at all. I could ALSO read the street signs when mom drove us from place to place from almost a full block away, and the fine print on pretty much anything at all was no challenge. I could ALSO read when it was dark, like - reading a map at night while standing under a dimly lit street lamp. My peripheral vision was pretty impressive too, according to the eye doctor, and everyone I knew who marvelled at how I could avoid bumping into walls or other people while reading and walking at the same time.
Fast forward to now, at age 54. My peripheral vision is the same. I can still read and walk without bumping into anything or tripping over anything. But I can't read a normal-sized book (like, New Times Roman 12) without squinting, and even then it's all fuzzy. The only reason I can figure out what's written is word recognition, rather than actual visual acuity. I ALSO noticed that with the trifocals, things at a distance are clearer than they were the day before I got my prescription. So my distance vision has become less sharp over time and I never even noticed.
I've had astigmatism my whole life but only wore glasses for it the first few months after I got them, when I was around 11 years old. I hated them and "lost" them and never wore anything on my eyes other than cheap BluBlocker sunglasses since.
I'm still not convinced the astigmatism correction on my new trifocals are useful to me, I feel an odd tension or pressure on my eyeballs all the time when I wear them (which is most of the time).
Once you get cataracts then you can have surgery for that. You will no longer need glasses of any kind then. Or so I am told.
What you were told is patently incorrect. It is true that an intraocular lens (which replaces the natural lens upon cataract removal) can correct the vision of most people, sparing them from wearing glasses. However, it is not true for all people.
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