Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire So, How Exactly do Reading Glasses or Bifocals Work?

I am slightly nearsighted and have been wearing glasses for about 20 years. For most of that time, I could see perfectly at distance while wearing my glasses, and I could see perfectly up close without my glasses on. As happens to just about everyone who gets older, my up-close vision is getting worse. So, now I have to hold things farther away from my eyes to see things close-up.

I've been tying flies to entertain myself during the winter months, and I'm having a difficult time seeing what the hell I am doing. I definitely can't wear my glasses while tying, and I can no longer see clearly when seated at "normal" fly tying distance from the vise.

Would some type of cheap reading glasses help with this? I don't need magnification, I just need to be able to focus close up. How about bifocals?

I still see fine at distance with my regular glasses; I see fine at a closer distance of between about 5 feet to 20 feet with no glasses; but I can't see chit from a few inches to a couple feet. What's the solution? It seems like I have three distinct problems to overcome, and trifocals don't seem like anything I'd want to deal with.

Thanks.

I have good vision at distance, but I've needed "cheaters" for reading for quite some time.

Go down to the drugstore and try out some of the reading glasses they have,..1.5's or 2.0's.

Migyt be that you can take your real glasses off when you're doing close work and use the cheaters.

I got a scrip pair of reading glasses from my optometrist. He was trying to help me correct a problem. They help a lot especially as of late.

Cheap reading glasses might do it. Go into Walmart, Costco, Fred Meyer or wherever and try some. Costs nothing until u check out. They come in different strengths from 1.5 to 3.75 I think. I'm using 2.5 or 2.75 currently. Both work and are useful at slightly different distances - say computers and books. I buy ours -wife wears them too- at Costco. 3 pack for $19. Get the flex frames. I can destroy them but it takes a little effort. Mostly the wife lays them lens down and they get scratched beyond use eventually. Lightweight , plastic, no bendy nose pieces, and work better in cold than metal.

I wore bifocals for years before getting cataract surgery. New lenses corrected for long distance, But , like you I need cheaters inside arms length. You don't need bifocals if Vision still good out a bit.

Pardon the cell phone....

That's the easy thing to do. I guess I've been under the impression that cheaters were nothing more than magnifiers, and I don't think I need magnification. It's not that stuff is too small for me to see, it's just that I can't focus up close.

Maybe I'm wrong and cheaters don't just magnify. If they help focus, that would be great. Should be almost as easy to find out as asking people on the 'Fire.

We all end up there, most just quit reading. I use a magnifying glass cause I hate glasses.

Cheaters aren't magnification lenses.

I don't know how they work, actually. But they do.

When I was still doing machine work I'd wear bifocal safety glasses. They were just clear except for the bifocal insert.

I keep 'em around now to use as shooting glasses. They come in handy when I have to dink around with scope adjustments and stuff. Otherwise, they're just clear safety glasses.

Reading cheaters are not magnifiers.

An eye doc explained it to me that to see up close your eye needs to relax internally to get the focus.

As you get older you lose the ability to get the eye to relax. You need cheaters or ..... bifocals.

I've been wearing trifocals for several years now. I usually don't even notice having to adjust what part I'm looking through. For some reason looking into display cases at a gun store is about the hardest thing lol, the distance must be right at the transition from one lens to the next.

How do they work? You put them and look through them.
You're welcome.

As we age, the natural lens of the eye loses flexibility. Its called presbyopia.

A perfect powered eye can see 20/20 or better. When a kid, that eye can focus to a few inches. As we age the nearest clear distance an eye can focus gradually increases because it gets stiffer and we cant focus as close.

A perfect eye can focus at 16 inches only until about age 44 where it could focus at maybe 8 inches at age 35.

Focusing ability is age related.

At 44 with perfect eyes we need help to focus to read as we are using all our focusing ability to see clear at 16 in.

I am old. I can see perfectly at 16 inches without specs because i am Near Sighted (myopic) approximately the correct amount to see up close (2 Diopters).

If i were highly myopic (6 D) i would need glasses to see clearly at 16 inches or i could see clearly at about 6 inches without specs.

After age 44 a perfect eye needs slightly more help to see clear at near as we age because we are able to focus our hardening lens
less as we age.

By age 58 or so we have no focusing ability left and need 2.50 diopters of lens power to focus at 16 in if our eyes are perfect (emetropic- meaning no refractive error at distance).

Farsighted folks need + power (biconvex) to see at far without straining. Young folks or kids who are a little farsighted can strain, focusing to see at far as perfect eyes do to see at near.. Problem one, they have to focus more and strain more to focus enough to see up close.

Those with low or moderate farsighted eyes (hyperopic) strain more to see clear without an rx as they age because the lens hardens. This normally leads to kids getting eyestrain and tired eyes after near work. They are the kids mom says likes to play outdoors and hates studying.

The danger of them aging without vision correction is that they also strain more and more to see clear at distance as they age and tiredness driving increases as they age and this can result in highway hypnotism and sleep while driving.

They need correction to help focus at distance with out them focusing. They then focus normally to see at near-until after, again, age 44 or so when they also need additional focusing power at near to see clear at near -bifocals.

Me being a senior and able to see clear at near with no rx, i see blurred at far and need myopic correction. Now, when i use an rx to see clear to drive, when i wear it, my vision is clear at distance but i cant then see clear at near because i am presbyopic and cant focus my hard lenses in my eyes to see at near. Answer, bifocals to focus the near vision,

The ideal lens for you would be progressives. They will have a portion of the lens to suit any distance you need to see.

One quickly learns to aim the head so as to be looking through the correct part of the lens for any distance. But a good pair of progressives involves an eye exam and a new pair of expensive glasses.

The short term and inexpensive solution is a pair of readers. My wife has been using readers for about ten years, as she needs no correction past three feet. She uses 1.25 strength.

As to, how do they work?

The cornea of our eye is a flexible lens which focuses a picture of the world upon our retina. To focus on near objects the cornea must flex and assume a curved shape. To focus on far away objects, the cornea flattens to allow more parallel light rays to reach the retina in a focused pattern.

As we age, the cornea loses its flexibility. It is no longer able to flex sufficiently and curve enough to focus an image from a near object. Reading glassses take up the slack and focus the image before it reaches the eye.

Reading glasses have a plus prescription, or power in them. The lens has a heavier curve on the front side of the lens than is on the back side, making the lens thicker in the middle, and thinner at the edges. Plus power pulls an image closer to your eye and enlarges it.

A minus, or distance lens is just the opposite. The curve on the back side of the lens is steeper than the curve on the front side, which makes the lens thinner in the center, and thicker at the edges. A minus, or distance lens pushes the image further away, which corrects for myopia, or near sightedness.

As we age, and our muscles weaken, our eyes start to struggle with focusing at reading distance. This is when we go to bifocals or reading glasses. There comes a point in time where many of us not only experience difficulty with close, near, or reading vision, but also with intermediate vision, which would be best described as arm's length, or computer or dashboard distance. This is when we would go to trifocals. While bifocals correct for far away (infinity) and reading distance (10 to 13 inches) trifocals correct of both of these, plus intermediate distance. (Arm's length distance)

At your intermediate distance, you don't need quite as much plus power (about 1/3 less) than you need at reading distance. A trifocal compensates for that. A trifocal lens with a +2.50 add has an intermediate addition of about +1.75. This should allow the reader to see clearly at distance, intermediate, and near points of focus.

I'm a career optician with over 30 years in the industry. If anyone needs any help with this stuff, and with what to say when you go for an exam and to pick out new glasses, contact me any time and I'll be happy to help out however possible.

Typical red blood male with perfect eyes/vision hits 44.5 yrs and starts seeing a little blurred at near tasks.

He decides he will strain hard and keep his eyes focusing up close to dodge a near rx. As he ages he holds it farther back and strains away.

His lenses continue to lose focus at near ability and his focusing muscles pull hard to let the lens become more spherical to see at near- and it works-somewhat. But the lens, having become stiffer, becomes somewhat overfocused for clear distance vision because it doesnt now flatten as well as before when he looks up to see at far.

Then, at 46-47, he gets in the car Fri pm and heads to Dallas. After dusk he notices he cant see very well driving, having made himself myopic from straining to see up close.

He gets back and calls in Monday AM for an emergency appt because hes "going blind" as he tells me. Says hes been having trouble seeing up close a couple years and now hes getting where he cant see to drive. He wants to know whats causing him to go blind.

After a thorough exam i tell him the problem is (as they "discovered" a few hundred years ago- ha) he will be OK but he's getting too much sex.

I tell him not to worry, bifocals are the cure unless he wants to stop having sex.

Those who can afford it buy 2 pair.

(Wink).

The older you get your eyes let in less light.

I have been using good store bought for a while.

Had the eye doc get me some on script but those high dollar glasses broke within a year and a half.

Don't feel so bad if i screw up glasses that cost way less.

Please Pardon terminoligy changes.

This^^^.

appreciate the clarifications. You are the professional. I am just a consumer.

Had I seen your prior post before writing mine, I would not have bothered.

Still, pretty much just about on for not being an eye dr i'd say.