As you get older, your eyes gradually lose their ability to focus close up. They lose what we call accommodation. When you are born, you have stacks of accommodation and can focus very close up. This ability reduces as your lens hardens throughout life.
When you get to about sixty, you have no accommodation and find any close up task very difficult. Most people are completely unaware of this process until they get to about forty. Anyone who has gone through this knows exactly what I am talking about. Your arms are not long enough, you need to move to the window to read, you can’t read text messages, you get headaches and eyestrain using a VDU.
All these are symptoms of presbyopia; the need for reading glasses. It is inevitable and happens to all of us. If you are mildly short sighted, you will notice this change by the need to remove your eyeglasses to perform close up work.
If you are lucky enough to have no distance prescription in both eyes then ready reader glasses will be enough to solve your problems. Ready readers are specs that can be sold without a glasses prescription. They have to have the same power in both eyes, can only have plus prescriptions up to plus 4.00. They cannot be sold to minors and can only be sold for the purposes of reading, ie they cannot be used to correct long sightedness.
This does mean that the wearer needs to have perfect distance vision that is equal in both eyes.
The power you need for reading depends upon age and what close up work you are doing. The higher number, the greater the magnification. The greater the magnification, the closer you have to move whatever it is that you are working on, so you lose range. As a rough guide, choose the lowest number you can, whilst still being able to see small detail.
+1.00 should be good at age forty, +1.50 at forty five to fifty. Increase this as you feel the need for more help close up.
Prescription eyeglasses on the other hand correct both eyes perfectly, regardless of distance prescription and any imbalance between the eyes. Specifically, they correct any astigmatism and will be perfectly focused, for both eyes, for your individual needs as determined by your optician.
The biggest problem with ready readers is that a lot of people feel they don’t need to see an optician if they can read and see well. The largest proportion of an eye exam is checking that your eyes are healthy. A recent study by the RNIB showed that 50% of all sight loss would be prevented if everyone had a routine eye exam.
Also, you cant buy designer ready readers.
Craig Leaver
Owner Optician of https://www.glassesca.com/ an online shop for designer glasses and designer eyeglasses.
Check out the shop at https://www.glassesca.com/