Digital Gee

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.

maddmaxx 

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

CrossChain

Oooohhhh.............poor baby. I've been wearing tri-focals for some time now [he says, striking his chest with manful assertion.] Frankly, I don't notice them anymore; I ride with tri-focal sunglasses, too. Playing catch with my son out in the street is dicey as the ball sails through various focal zones as I try to track it like a Patriot missile system-- hopefully they're more successful.

Hang in there, DG. As one of the point men on aging here at BF, I'll send back reports of what I find. Only Dnvr and Zonatandem and a few others are out front of me.

LastPlace

I have needed to wear bifocals for the last ten years and do so by wearing contacts all the time and reading glasses when I do something like writing this.

My eye doctor told me he could fit me with $150 readers or I could buy them at the supermarket. Actually I will probably pick up a new pair tonight when I stop at the grocery store coming home from work.

I do have back-up glasses that are transitions bifocals, but it is like looking through the bottom of a thick coke bottle. Actually a bit nauseating if I move my viewing from near to far, or the reverse, too quickly.

Yes, I'm weird.

crtreedude 

Man DG, you must be OLD!

(as I look for my trifocals)

My excuse is a lifetime of staring at computer screens.

Yen

I've been wearing transition bifocals for about 5 years. I need them for reading or any up-close work, and for distance including TV and of course driving (especially at night). I also wear bifocal sunglasses which I wear while riding my bike.

I'd like to get a pair of the cheapies from the drug store but I can't figure out which magnification is right for me. Is there a trick to that? A friend of mine says she gets hers at the 99-cent store! I'd like a pair for reading in bed that I can take off and put on the table. I also need a pair for computer work.

While we're on this subject -- has anyone else noticed a decline in their night vision? I've had a couple of scary moments when it seemed as if cars were too close to me on both sides and I could hardly wait to get home. I don't see flares or bright lights or stars or anything like that. It's hard to describe... it just seems like I can't see everything, and yet I can. I had a thorough eye exam by an opthamologist who declared them perfectly healthy. Now I understand why my parents like to get home before dark.........

doctor j

I wear the cheapie reading glasses available at the bg-box stores. Also, I have no-line trifocals. I use the trifocals for riding the bike, but I take the el-cheapo reading glasses along for maps or repairs.

The trifocals are frustrating because the reading area is narrow and at the bottom of the lens. I have to tilt my head back to use them. Because the area is so narrow, I have to move my head as I read across the page or the screen instead of being able to move my eyes; therefore, I use the cheapies a lot.

I can't stand glasses, either. At least they don't require batteries or programming!

Presbyopia !!!

bcoppola

Presription bifocals here.

I've been extremely nearsighted most of my life so I'm used to glasses.

Wore contacts for several years to indulge my vanity & please my wife (she says I have "pretty eyes"); managed those "bifocal" contacts (one near, one far) for a few years till the difference needed between them got too great & gave me headaches. Back to glasses; sorry darling.

Garfield Cat

My optometrist got me a pair just for computer work. I think its the bifocals except the lense is for a certain distance....my eyes and the screen.

Red Baron

Dang How I hate bifocals,

When in Vietnam, topic of discussion was which would be worse if we tripped a mine (bouncing betty) : to lose eyesight or ...(ahem..cough, cough) ..other. No one ever chose I know of. Odd how nature now seems to be making that choice a reality. Course - there's still some time yet.

Beverly

I don't wear prescription lenses but I have reading glasses everywhere - work, home, car, bike bag....

trackhub

At 50, I have the opposite of what a lot of my peers have. I can see close up without my glasses just fine. It's a life long problem with seeing distance that I have trouble with. Over the past 8 years or so, it has been somewhat promlematic, as I must now remove my glasses to read something, or when I sit down at a computer screen. They I must put them back on. Never used to be a problem.

I could get bifocals, but so far I have not sprung for them.


I do like my increasingly grey hair though. I can wander all over Best Buy, and the blue shirts leave me alone. Cops in their 20's call me "Sir", which I find hilarious.

Coyote!

Yeah, even coyote eyes get old. When I want to telegraph a semblance of gravitas [ok, don't state the obvious, and anyway it's too easy] I have one good sturdy pair of reading glasses. Otherwise, about every three years I buy a 'bag-o-specs' at Wal-Reich [or some such]. Then I scatter 'em around like snuff at an Irish wedding so's there's a pair within reach all about the house. This includes a pair in my bike kit in case I need to read the Riot Act someplace.

Baroque

I'm very nearsighted (not quite as bad as Mr. Magoo, but getting there) so I wear contacts, and need reading glasses to see anything up close if I don't take the contacts out and put my prescription glasses on. The better half is farsighted. Between us we have a huge collection of reading glasses from "salvage" stores, Christmas Tree Shop, and Walmart. The slim gold $8 glasses from Walmart in the gold metal case survive the longest.

Some years ago we stopped at a gas station and asked a nice couple if they could direct us to a local street. The gentleman put on his own glasses, then his wife's glasses over his, in order to read his map. This was just a humorous memory until we started doing the same thing sometimes!


-Ally

tpelle

I am VERY NEARSIGHTED (can barely read the big 'E' on the chart), with a killer astigmatism. I wear gas permeable contact lenses that correct my vision to 20-20 in the left eye and 20-25 in the right. I'm also 54 years old, and wear "transition" line-less bifocals when I'm not wearing contacts.

Last week my optometrist made a new right contact lens for me out of some new material, AND IT'S FANTASTIC! Comfortable, and I can see better than I ever did. (I'm going to have him make a new left one out of the same material.)

When I'm wearing contacts, I usually need reading glasses. My optometrist said that the drug-store ones are just as good as the ones he could make, and recommended that I just buy them there. Actually, the Dollar Store is the best place to buy 'em. They're cheap enough there that you can buy a bunch of them and leave them all over the place. However, with the new contact lens, I find that I can read perfectly well without the reading glasses.

DougG

Progressive bifocals for me, one normal pair and one sunglasses. Works great for me.

divingbiker

I've been wearing progressive bifocals for 10 years now--got them the same month I turned 40. I made the mistake of being too cheap to spring for bifocals in my cycling sunglasses (Rudy Project), and I'll never do that again.

Re night vision, I've got an eye condition (epithelial basement membrane dystrophy) that makes the surface of my eye rough, so halos are a terrible problem at night. It also seems like cars are coming out of nowhere, especially on the highway. I end up being a homebody after dark, unless someone else is driving. EBMD also intensifies the glare of the sun, so if I don't have sunglasses on I pretty much have to keep my eyes closed. That's kind of a pain.

The Weak Link

You all are getting old. Soon you will die.

Get over it.

Digital Gee

This is a generalization and simply not true in my case. I'm working on immortality, and so far, everything seems to be working.

BluesDawg

I used to be immortal, but I abused the privilege and was made mortal again. Rats!

jppe

Monovision with contacts here. It's worked perfectly for me for almost 15 years.

Bud Bent

I use stick-on bifocal reading glass lenses on all my sunglasses, and on my safety glasses at work. I still have very good vision at a distance, but up close, it just ain't happening.

xlrogue

I'm working on immorality, which is more fun, as long as everything seems to be working.

Veering back OT, I wear disposable contacts and get my reading glasses in a 3 pack at Costco, which seem to hold up better than other cheapies. I keep them in my car, my briefcase, on my workbench, and several other places that I'm sure I'll remember at some point. And yet, sometimes I find myself without them and have to do Jedi mind tricks to read things like menus and ingredient lists. (Mommy, why is that man squinching his eyes up all funny and having that lady across the table hold the menu?)

Coyote!

>>> You all are getting old. Soon you will die. Get over it.

Can't be true. . .I'm planning to bike or hike all the trails in the George Washington National Forest and Shenandoah National Park. . .not planning any health issues for another 15 decades.

Reading glasses content? I just don't see me dying soon.

rhawkins

This was my problem until the past year (will be 54 in a week). Now, I can't read the paper without help, so I've gone to progressives.