After the age of 40, we all experience some degree of age-related long-sightedness and our columnist, Eleanor Mills, is no different. Here, she shares her experience of trying varifocals for the very first time.
HEALTH
I’ve been in denial about my fading eyesight for at least a decade. It started with realising that I couldn’t actually read newspaper print anymore in dim light. Then I began getting headaches and realised that hours spent editing copy in front of a screen was probably the culprit. So I got reading glasses.
But, since then, my eyesight has got worse. I can’t read messages on my phone if they’re in normal-sized print. It’s getting tricky to read books in the bath (waaah) and I went to a crucial hospital appointment on the wrong day recently because I read a six as a nine (sorry over-stretched NHS).
My children are sick of me asking them to read packets to find out what temperature the oven should be. And don’t even get me going on restaurant menus – a combination of darkness and coloured fonts (coupled with being too proud to get the waiter to read it to me, or taking my glasses ‘out out’…) means I’ve ended up ordering some pretty weird food.
So the time came for a proper eye test. The result? The nice chap at Vision Express (his name card said Yusuf but he is actually called Mohammed. He explained there were five other Mohammeds in the store so they all use their middle names to avoid confusion) said it was time for me to have permanent specs.
I was faced with a few options. Contact lenses… too fiddly and I don’t like putting things in my eyes. Two different kinds of specs (some for short distances, another pair for driving, etc). Or varifocals. Described to me as magic, two pairs of specs in one – and they could even go dark in the sun so I wouldn’t need sunglasses either.
That sounded just the ticket, so I was sent off to the optometrists for a whole barrage of eye tests. The optician explained that after the age of 40, everyone will experience some degree of presbyopia – age-related long-sightedness, where the lens becomes less elastic and flexible, making it difficult to shift focus quickly between nearby and distant objects. It tends to first present as difficulty reading fine print unless held at arm’s length, as well as eye strain when reading for long periods.
I then got to the bottom of why I couldn’t read any messages on my phone; presbyopia also makes nearby objects appear fuzzy and vision may become temporarily blurred when changing the length of the viewing distance.
Of course, menopause
