Contact your Hamburg, MI Optometrist to Find Out About Treatment Options
Presbyopia is an age-related condition in which the ability to focus on close objects becomes noticeably reduced. As people around the world are reaching older ages, a larger number of individuals develop the condition, which is an unavoidable result of your aging eye.
Your natural lenses bend to focus on objects at varying distances. Some believe that as you grow older, that flexibility gets diminished because the lenses become thicker. This condition is called presbyopia and is often first noticed by an increased difficulty focusing on things right in front of you. This usually starts to take place any time after the age of 40. Sufferers usually manage with the situation by holding a newspaper far away or standing away from the object they are looking at. Transitions from focusing on far off things to nearer ones can often be straining for people with presbyopia. The tension could worsen the situation resulting in headaches, eye strain or fatigue.
Most often bifocals or progressives (PALs) are worn to deal with presbyopia. A bifocal lens is separated into two prescriptions for vision, one is for seeing things from far away and a second, lower portion for looking at objects that are close by. Progressive lenses are similar to bifocal lenses, however the transitions between the two prescriptions are more gradual and have no clear distinction between them. Users will more easily change visual focus, as they might if they had uninhibited sight. A third option is reading glasses which are usually worn just when needed as opposed to all day.
Presbyopes can also use multifocal contact lenses or monovision lens correction (when one eye is prescribed a correction for distance vision and the other near vision) to deal with their vision impairment. Multifocals don't work for everyone and can sometimes cause discomfort or vision difficulties, so it may take some time to figure out if and in what combination they work for you.
There are also options for other procedures including surgery available that should be discussed with your optometrist. A significant number of people are most successful using a combination of treatments for presbyopia. Also, because your eyesight will likely worsen with age, it is likely that you will need to continually adjust your correction. With the population growing older, there continues to be a significant amount of experimental treatment on the market currently to identify more and perhaps more permanent treatments for presbyopia.
Noticing symptoms of presbyopia? Schedule a visit with your Hamburg, MI optometrist. Better eyesight is worth it!