Reading glasses: The Curse of the 50+ Crowd?
 

Okay, here's a topic sure to fit right in with the 50+ crowd: dang-blasted READING GLASSES!

Do you wear 'em? Do you buy cheapies at the pharmacy or get a prescription? Do you also wear contacts to see distance? Do you wear bifocals? Trifocals?

I buy cheapies and try to do so whenever they're on sale. No fashion maven here, I'm afraid. Plus I have to wear contacts to see long distance, and I've even tried to find yet another strength reading glasses for the computer -- which is just a bit further away than a book, but not far enough.

I've been wearing reading glasses for fifteen years. I can't stand 'em, but it is what it is. I don't need them to ride -- I can see the cyclometer just fine.

http://www.aclens.com/accessoryphoto...eaders-all.jpg

I use them to find the computer keys that I press once to start a thread

Had 20/15 for years. Now, I can't read my watch. I use Wally World cheapie reading glasses. On the bike, I use one of the stick-on bifocals (one lense only) on the sungalsses so I can read the computer. I carry a set of the "fold up into a lipstick size case" reading glasses in the seat bag.

I buy them in packs of 4 from Sam's Club. I can still read the newspaper in good light without them, but it's much more pleasant with them. Anything smaller than that - or anything in poor light, I can't read w/o reading glasses. I use the weakest ones: 1.25 or at most 1.5. Anything stronger than that makes me woozy.

I've graduated to the stage of life we 50+'ers dread: I now occasionally string the glasses around my neck and walk around like that.

Thank god I don't need the bifocals for riding the bike. I can read the computer fine w/o them. However, I have a Flightdeck computer with extra large digits.

I've needed them since I was about 44. I get one eye doctor pair every other year from our vision insurance through my wifes job. I also buy a cheap pair now and then for work, to carry on the bike or MC or boat, etc. so if I lose them it's no biggie.

I wear progressive lenses -- basically trifocals without the lines. Expensive. Dang it. But they are good if you can wear them and you want one pair that covers all three -- distance, computers/arm-length and reading/up close.

Yeah, glasses are a pain. I'd get Lasik or whatever but it apparently wouldn't work for me. I'm farsighted and have presbyopia -- fear of Presbyterians -- no, it's just aging eyes. They could give me one contact lens or something. Don't want to deal with that.

I wear trifocals now. I'm very farsighted, and found that bifocals didn't give me that "middle" distance I needed. Tried the progressive lenses-didn't work with my prescription--only had tunnel vision with them, no peripheral at all-could only see straight ahead (very straight ahead!). I use an old pair of glasses for riding-with clip on sunglasses-other than prescription sunglasses, it's my only choice.

I have a pair in every room in the house, varying corrections (+1.25 to +2). In a darkened restaurant, I've been known to wear +2's to eat! :eek:

I also keep a pair in the car, and should carry a pair in my tool bag on the bike. Last time I had to patch a tire in my kitchen, I was glad to have a pair at hand!

I started wearing them at work several years ago and immediatly started bashing my head everywhere. I'm a mechanic and the stupid glasses change the field of vision and twice I hit my head so hard it drove me to the floor. I don't take them on the bike, but I have to stop to read a route slip.

I pretty much keep them sprinkled around my world (most rooms of the house, work bag, tool box) but I frequently curse the need (not really) for them. This weekend I installed several devices (new office PC, new home hdtv, and lots of rearrangement of existing electronics) and found it maddening to look at connectors in awkward positions in low light. It's the only time I ever hate getting old (so far). Fortunately I'm OK between 2 ft and 6 ft and still passable for distance (mild correction for driving at night), so most of my active world is OK.

+1

Well I tried those once and they drove me crazy (especially while driving). I found I had to keep moving my head around to find the region of correction appropriate for my target distance. While driving it started to feel like fun house mirrors with stuff going in and out of focus as I tried to get my head aligned for whatever I was looking at. But several folks have told me they love them.

Yeah, they are not for everyone. When I was fitted for mine they told me there was a 50/50 chance that I'd be able to adjust to them.

My eyes are weird beyond belief so no "off-the-shelf" glasses for me.
I made the switch to progressive bifocs a couple of years ago. I love 'em.
I also use Transitions. As an early adopter of Photograys many, many years ago, I found Transitions and Transitions II to be a real disappointment. I guess they're on III now and it's much, much improved.
I can read my bike computer just fine

I started wearing glasses in the 3rd grade for near-sightedness.

Later in high school, I switched to contacts (hard ones, way before there were soft ones) and wore them off and on into college. They worked well for snow skiing and other outdoor sports, but dirt and dust were killers.

When the soft ones came out I tried those, but they really did not work that well for me. They were also a hassle (had to boil them each night to sterilize them). When ‘newer’ ones came out, I tried those but they weren’t much better. Later I got lazy and reverted back to glasses.

As I got older, it started getting harder to see up close with the glasses. I do a lot of close work, working inside computers, looking at small parts and could always see better up close with out glasses.

Eventually I had to get correction for up close for reading and viewing the computer screen, so went directly to the progressive lenses, which worked pretty good, but I still could see better up close with out glasses.

In the summer of 2005, I was having some eye problems so went to an eye specialist/surgeon for an exam. I had some sort of skin condition that affected my eyelids and eyelashes, so was prescribed some eye drops and some ointment to treat it.

Unfortunately, the medication caused me to have some fast growing cataracts and caused some temporary high eye fluid pressure. Some other medication took care of the glaucoma with no eye damage.

Last summer in July, I had both cataracts removed and replaced with corrective lenses, like permanent contacts. I opted to have the correction for clear distance vision so I could see far away now. The correction came out to between 20-20 and 20-15 in both eyes. One other benefit is as I get even older….I won’t get cataracts again, something almost everybody will get.

So now I have to wear cheaters to read and see the computer screen...I have 3 different strengths. I also use one of those over the head magnifiers for really close-up work. But I can see everything in the distance very clearly, quite a change from being almost legally blind since I was a kid (20-200 without glasses…couldn’t even see the big “E” at the top of the charts).

I had a hard time seeing the cycle computer so ordered some of the stick on corrective lenses, cut them to fit and put one lens on the right side of 2 pairs of sunglasses. This works fine for reading the speed, mileage, etc. I also carry some cheaters with me on the bike so I can see to change a tire, read a route map, or read a menu at a café.