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Medical Forum / General / Vision / August 2006Do "Reading Glasses" Change Your Eyes?
In my late 50s, I noticed I was getting more and more nearsighted. Eventually, I bought some drugstore reading glasses and I seem to have to rely on them more and more. Is this a normal change going on as I age or are the reading (magnifying) glasses hastening the change? >In my late 50s, I noticed I was getting more and more nearsighted. >Eventually, I bought some drugstore reading glasses and I seem to have >to rely on them more and more. Is this a normal change going on as I >age It sounds like you are experiencing symptoms of presbyopia (see <http://tinyurl.com/kk7vl>), but you should get your eyes checked to find out for sure. >or are the reading (magnifying) glasses hastening the change? A qualified "No". What reading glasses may do, to some observers, is make them more readily appreciate how blurry things are WITHOUT the glasses. As they wear the glasses, they get used to seeing clearly. Then when they don't wear the glasses, they realize how poorly they saw before (and how clearly their vision can be now) and attribute that to the glasses making their eye worse or "hastening the change". The change (presbyopia) occurs essentially irrespectively of how reading glasses are or aren't used. Dear Tom, It is not clear what you are saying. Tom> In my late 50s, I noticed I was getting more and more nearsighted. ] It sounds like you are having problems reading things "close". It that what you mean. In which case the "readers" will clear your near vision -- but that is not nearsighedness. In general that development -- with age -- is called presbyopia. Best, Otis > In my late 50s, I noticed I was getting more and more nearsighted. > Eventually, I bought some drugstore reading glasses and I seem to have > to rely on them more and more. Is this a normal change going on as I > age or are the reading (magnifying) glasses hastening the change? > It sounds like you are having problems reading things "close". > > It that what you mean. In which case the "readers" will clear > your near vision -- but that is not nearsighedness. Reading things like newspapers, restaurant receipts (especially in low light & with those bad fonts) seem to be more and more difficult to read without those drugstore reading glasses. A concern of mine was that these glasses may be making things so easy to read that I am letting my eye muscles get lazy. Tom, both of us are getting older. You have apperently had good vision (distant) up to now. On of the effects of "getting older" is that the response of accommodation is slower -- i.e., we can't read in dim light, the way we used to. You are correct about the eye -- it does respond to a lens -- but by only a small amount. The best "second-opinion" is to just avoid the use of the "readers" most of the time. But the rest of is just the "march of time" -- for both of us. Best, Otis > > It sounds like you are having problems reading things "close". > > [quoted text clipped - 7 lines] > A concern of mine was that these glasses may be making things so easy > to read that I am letting my eye muscles get lazy. >In my late 50s, I noticed I was getting more and more nearsighted. >Eventually, I bought some drugstore reading glasses and I seem to have >to rely on them more and more. Is this a normal change going on as I >age or are the reading (magnifying) glasses hastening the change? Tom, Your presbyopia is pretty much maxed out at your age. My guess is you're becoming less nearsighted. I'd schedule an eye exam if it's been more than a year since the last check, and/or if the change was more sudden in nature. Hope this helps, Robert Martellaro ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Optician/Owner Roberts Optical Wauwatosa, Wi. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ "Science is a way of trying not to fool yourself." - Richard Feynman Reading glasses dont affect your axial myopia, but they can reduce or prevent it in children, but once stair-case myopia takes off, there is no reversal. At your age, you have vitrually no accomodation left and even your mild myopia isnt enough to see clear from near. Also you are experiencing hyperopic shift, something people in their 40s and 50s experience due to changes in chemistry and anatomy of their crystaline lens. > Reading glasses dont affect your axial myopia, but they can reduce or > prevent it in children Oops. Myth presented as fact. You do that a lot. -MT > Reading glasses dont affect your axial myopia, but they can reduce or > prevent it in children, but once stair-case myopia takes off, there is [quoted text clipped - 3 lines] > experience due to changes in chemistry and anatomy of their crystaline > lens. Ignore the retard here, he knows not what he speaks of. I have another thread going, sort of on this topic. But you mention something interesting: can you get "less" nearsighted? I have been severly nearsighted forever...and was excellently corrected with hard then gas perm lenses. And now the presbyobia thing is rearing its head and making it difficult for me to read in my contacts (although if I pop them out, I read fine in my regular glasses...which I HATE wearing...) My question inspired by your words is: can my myopia actually be reversing? Or does the presbyopia only make is SEEM like it is. My other question is, is there a point where presbyopia stops--or does it progress forever? >>In my late 50s, I noticed I was getting more and more nearsighted. >>Eventually, I bought some drugstore reading glasses and I seem to have [quoted text clipped - 17 lines] >"Science is a way of trying not to fool yourself." > - Richard Feynman > My question inspired by your words is: can my myopia actually be > reversing? > Or does the presbyopia only make is SEEM like it is. There is a period between age 30 and 50 when it is common for myopes to get a little better, just as hyperopes get a little worse. Whether or not it's part of presbyopia, it's not unusual for myopes to see a half-diopter of "improvement". -MT, OD no. your eyes are getting worse for adjusting to near work as you get older and thus you need to depend on your readers more and more. its a natural process called presbyopia. ============ > In my late 50s, I noticed I was getting more and more nearsighted. > Eventually, I bought some drugstore reading glasses and I seem to have > to rely on them more and more. Is this a normal change going on as I > age or are the reading (magnifying) glasses hastening the change? > In my late 50s, I noticed I was getting more and more nearsighted. > Eventually, I bought some drugstore reading glasses and I seem to have > to rely on them more and more. Is this a normal change going on as I > age or are the reading (magnifying) glasses hastening the change? Late 50s? Sounds good! My own advancing vision limitation seems to have maxed out, and I'm still short of being into the late 50s by a stretch. Anyway, I'm no expert on this stuff, just a hyperopic presbyope whose been reluctantly adpating by way of corrective lenses for several years now. But I'm finding that getting dialed-in to an optimal corrective-lens solution is one of the more interesting techno things I've ever done. The way I look at it now, when your eyes go blurry, it sucks. But the availablilty of optical solutions makes it minor problem for those of us who live in the wealthy world where highly developed and effective corrective lens technologies and services are available. About the question on hastening the aging process by wearing glasses, I look at it this way: You already went almost 60 years without glasses. There is no reason to expect that going another 60 years without glasses will do you any more good than the first 60 years did. Therefore, you should wear your glasses whenever you want. mC > In my late 50s, I noticed I was getting more and more nearsighted. > Eventually, I bought some drugstore reading glasses and I seem to have > to rely on them more and more. Is this a normal change going on as I > age or are the reading (magnifying) glasses hastening the change? Late 50s? Sounds good! My own advancing vision limitation seems to have maxed out, and I'm still short of being into the late 50s by a stretch. Anyway, I'm no expert on this stuff, just a hyperopic presbyope whose been reluctantly adpating by way of corrective lenses for several years now. But I'm finding that getting dialed-in to an optimal corrective-lens solution is one of the more interesting techno things I've ever done. The way I look at it now, when your eyes go blurry, it sucks. But the availablilty of optical solutions makes it minor problem for those of us who live in the wealthy world where highly developed and effective corrective lens technologies and services are available. About the question on hastening the aging process by wearing glasses, I look at it this way: You already went almost 60 years without glasses. There is no reason to expect that going another 60 years without glasses will do you any more good than the first 60 years did. Therefore, you should wear your glasses whenever you want. mC > About the question on hastening the aging process by wearing glasses, I look > at it this way: You already went almost 60 years without glasses. There is > no reason to expect that going another 60 years without glasses will do you > any more good than the first 60 years did. Therefore, you should wear your > glasses whenever you want. My major concern was this: Are the reading glasses making it so easy to read that my eye muscles are getting lazy? If so, maybe I would need more and more magnification because the glasses were allowing the musces to get lazier and lazier. > My major concern was this: Are the reading glasses making it so easy to > read that my eye muscles are getting lazy? If so, maybe I would need more > and more magnification because the glasses were allowing the musces to get > lazier and lazier. No. It's a myth, one you will only hear from people _without_ training or experience in eye care. Presbyopia gets worse on a remarkably predictable schedule. Glasses don't change that outcome at all. -MT > > About the question on hastening the aging process by wearing glasses, I look > > at it this way: You already went almost 60 years without glasses. There is [quoted text clipped - 6 lines] > more and more magnification because the glasses were allowing the > musces to get lazier and lazier. In an Anatomy and Physiology course I took recently, we dissected eyes and learned about the aging process as it affects the eye, particularly the lens. When standing there in the lab and actually holding a lens in my fingers (from a cow) I came to understand things are not as they appear. (No pun intended.) In some ways the eye is much tougher than I thought, and I found the lens to be far less flexible than I thought it would be -- more like a rock than like some kind of blob of gob that tiny focus-muscles could have their way with. With age, I was taught, the lens just gets harder and harder and it does so on a very predictable time scale. For humans, at around 50 years, the lense has become so rigid that the muscles can no longer alter the shape of the lens -- it's gotten that hard. mC > > > About the question on hastening the aging process by wearing glasses, I look > > > at it this way: You already went almost 60 years without glasses. There is [quoted text clipped - 22 lines] > > mC Not only that, but the muscles get weaker over age. Accomodating IOLs have been tried and you are lucky if you achieve just ONE diopter of accomodation. Many other factors dictate presbyopia. Surguries have been tried and theres no reliable way short of making you myopic, giving you multifocals or in the future some sort of bionic lens with its own built in accomodation system. |
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