Reading glasses

depends what you do with them.

I hear they're good for reading.

They do make bifocal contacts...but they suck.. reading glasses are better...

Yeah, but how to do hold them up to your peepers without all the beer falling out...

alexoosthoek


Cool? 

yes

Welcome!  I started wearing those cheap ones you can buy for a few pounds ladt year, but they ended up giving me a headache.  So I went to have my eyes tested, and at the grand old age of 45 I now have a pair of readers that are 'balanced' for each eye.  I don't need them in the morning, but by midday out they come. 

Everything is nice and crisp and I don't mind them, except for the invevitable headphone/glasses argument.   At that point I end up making a spectacle of myself.

I have 2 pair. 

1.5 and 2.5 and I usually have one hanging around my neck and the other in my pocket. 

I can function well in daylight without the need for any glasses.  But to read or to work efficiently, I must have the 1.5's to see close up. 
Some of the circuit boards I work on daily have very small terminals and the writing on the PCB is so freaking tiny... only the 2.5's let me get down to the board font size clearly. And they are also a must for reading things on the phone screen too. 

Night time is the worst. Everything is out of focus slightly. I have even used the 1.5 readers to drive from time to time. 

Hi,
 
I have two prescriptions ... one for driving/distance and the other for computer/reading, although most of the reading I do is without glasses, as it has a funny way of getting between "me and the point" ... that is my childish way of saying that glasses have nothing to do with my getting into the story and the work, to the point where "glasses" or "eyes" are not important, or an issue ... when you "see" it, the rest is easy!
 
I don't do "reading" glasses, because they distort things for me, really bad ...
  
I've often wondered if this is one of the reasons why I never learned music better ... I can not see the keys well enough to identify them, not to mention that after the 3 right eye surgeries my hands are always on top of each other, and I want to learn music by feel and sound ... and there are no instructors out there ... that can help me ... that I can find ... and some fine folks at the Coffee House ... they are the sukkyaki in that respect and then some!
 
It's the same thing for me on the bass ... I can not see the exact position of my fret fingers, and am relegated to having to learn it by feel and by sound ... and this is really hard, for many instructors and folks that I have had lessons from ... but one instructor did say that I had a really good feel for detail, and I always closed out the songs, or phrases, really well ... hehehe ... no way a guitarist is going to out shine my feel ... !!!!

They do make bifocal contacts...but they suck.. reading glasses are better...

I finally got a pair of bifocal contacts that work well for me.  It took a lot of trial fittings and tweaking until they were the right power.  I lose just a little bit of distance sight, but my distance was so good that I really barely notice.  I was probably the worst patient ever when it came to learning to put the stupid things in my eyes, but now that I have been wearing them for a couple of years, it's become pretty easy.

The biggest benefit has been wearing them when playing sports, running, looking through the lens of a camera and generally in any situation where sweat comes into play.  I have a pair of prescription reading, no lines, glasses as well.  They are sharper for reading and seeing really small objects, but mowing the lawn with them on and sweating all over them was really driving me crazy here with these scorching summers.  

Well, I am not sure that they are called "bifocal", but they are contacts for reading.  My distance is 20/20.  The contacts don't have a line in them like glasses.  I basically can see close up at the same time that I see distance.  There is no transition at all.  The closest analogy that I can think of is that it is like having corrective surgery.  It's the closest thing that I have used to natural eye sight.  I'm too big of a whimp for corrective surgery. 

Mike, maybe you have monovision?  I guess it's where you see close up with one eye and distance with the other.  It's pretty cool if your eyes work like that.  And the surgery isn't bad...I got mine done at Lasik Vision Institute for about $300 an eye.  I thought I'd be freaked out with someone doing something to my eye with it forced open, but it was over in less than 20 seconds for each eye.  Maybe less than that.  Tell 'em I sent ya and I get a nice bonus.  :) 

Alex, I've used reading glasses for a few years now...just the off-the-shelf ones...but when I finally couldn't see to play music I had to get a prescription pair for the middle distance.  Ugh.  But I can see all those little dots on the page and my computer monitor is easier to see too.  (now I need a new excuse for missing the notes!)  Problem is, sometimes I need to see REAL close and that calls for the readers.  Distance vision isn't perfect, but I'm not ready to go back to glasses full time quite yet.  So I'm doing the juggling act with a couple pairs for now...I'll hold out as long as I can.   It's still a little weird doing the condescending look at my students if I happen to need my glasses on during class...but they haven't laughed yet (to my face anyway).  

I guess it happens to the best of us!  

When comes to reading glass's, you get what works. The smaller the better might not work. If you're at the stage where your "tunable" vision just went, it's going to vary a bit. If you need reading glass's, go to an eye doctor.

Janet,

When I hit 45, the typical reading problem happened for me where I could not read small print any more.  I bought an off the shelf pair of reading glasses at 1-1.5 power and used those for a couple of years.  I got tired of constantly putting them on and taking them off to do almost every day stuff in my job and private life. 

One day, a guy at work said to me, just do what I did and get some perscription glasses for reading.  I gave it a shot and went full bore with no line transitions; glasses that I could basically wear 100% off the time.  Totally clear looking forward but as you start to look down, the power varies until they become full reading.  I really liked them, totally clear and sharp and you did n't have to keep putting them on an off all the time.  I wore these for several years.  Maybe 2 years ago I went back in for a new perscription and the eye doctor asked me if I wanted one for just glasses or contacts as well.  I kind of laughted and said, well they don't make contacts for reading do they?  She said, yes, of course they do and tested me and gave me a set of trial contacts.  The first pair were to to strong.  I could count the hairs on my arm and pores in my skin, but distance was blury.  You have to wear them for a couple of days because your eyes adjust to them over a couple of days.  They just never did, so we tried slightly less power in one and more in the other.  Still to blury for driving and long distance.  The 3rd set she adjusted them both the same... I believe .5 in strength and they were perfect. 

Like I said in the other post, the distance is just a little less than normal eye sight, but not much.  I can still see the city of Dallas clear as day from 20 miles away on the highway.  Reading print is easy.  They are so comfortable that sometimes I forget that I have them in.  I even went to bed with them in once when I forgot.  I notice that my eyes have slowly gotten worse for close up stuff, but I am almost 52 now, so I expect that is just natural.  When I don't wear the glasses or contacts, basically anything with in 5-6 feet of me is slightly blury.  Still perfect distance with out.

Contacts are a one way street or at least they can be. They change your eyes with prolonged use. If you can get glass's that work get the glass's. I've been wearing a Rigid Gas Permeable for several years now for a scarred cornea-astigmatism. They can be very problematic. Weather and dirt can be a real PITA, as well as constant recalculations of your prescription.

Funny thing Janet, those glass's never worked. After the third pair "dissapeared" the parents stopped buying them. I didn't wear glass's again until I was almost 45ish. Due to injury.