4 ms·

Is it common for people around 50 to get Lasik or a similar procedure to counteract this?

300bps 5y ago
What they are describing is presbyopia. It's caused by the hardening of your lens as you age that makes it less able to change shape to focus on close-up things. No fix that I'm aware of but there are work-arounds: 1) For people that already wear glasses, use bifocal/trifocal/progressive lenses 2) For people that don't wear corrective lenses, use "reading glasses" and constantly put them on and take them off as you switch between looking at close/distant things. For contact lens wearers, there are some options: 1) Bifocal contact lenses. These gave me a constant headache. 2) Monovision. Essentially one eye tuned to distance and one tuned to close-up. I could not get used to this. There are some surgery options but really only to give you something like monovision through surgery instead of contacts. Unfortunately there's no fix for the root problem that I am aware of.
- rootusrootus 5y ago
  > 2) For people that don't wear corrective lenses, use "reading glasses" and constantly put them on and take them off as you switch between looking at close/distant things. This is my situation. It sucks. I only have one really good pair of reading glasses; I am starting to think the strategy of having a dozen pairs all over the house might be a better option. What's worse, for me personally, is that I get motion sick really quickly with the glasses on. I have to work quickly when I need them to see something.
- dugmartin 5y ago
  Presbyopia sneaks up on you. A few years ago I was teasing my older brother (in his early 50s) about the reading glasses he was wearing. He told me to try them out and when I did I felt like a gained a super-power - I hadn't realized my closeup vision had become "fuzzy" until then (I've had perfect vision all my life). Fast forward to today, my wife and I, both 50, have many sets of dollar store 1.25x reading glasses strewn around the house. I try to only use them when absolutely needed. I imagine an optometrist visit is in my future within the next few years but I'm trying to hold out.
  - rootusrootus 5y ago
    My wife, who is three years younger than me, used to tease me when she caught me squinting at something, or doing the old 'look through your fingertips' trick to see read some fine print. Now she doesn't laugh anymore. Everyone I've talked to says basically the same thing as you. It sneaks up. You don't realize at first the compensations you are using, unless someone says something. Or when the first thing you do on a new computer is crank up the font size. LOL.
  - the_d3f4ult 5y ago
    You already figured out the solution. The optometrist isn't going to do much else for you unless you need a distance prescription.
the_d3f4ult 5y ago
Lasik will not correct presbyopia unless you intentionally make yourself near-sighted. In that case you would need glasses for distance

What they are describing is presbyopia. It's caused by the hardening of your lens as you age that makes it less able to change shape to focus on close-up things. No fix that I'm aware of but there are work-arounds: 1) For people that already wear glasses, use bifocal/trifocal/progressive lenses 2) For people that don't wear corrective lenses, use "reading glasses" and constantly put them on and take them off as you switch between looking at close/distant things. For contact lens wearers, there are some options: 1) Bifocal contact lenses. These gave me a constant headache. 2) Monovision. Essentially one eye tuned to distance and one tuned to close-up. I could not get used to this. There are some surgery options but really only to give you something like monovision through surgery instead of contacts. Unfortunately there's no fix for the root problem that I am aware of.

rootusrootus 5y ago
> 2) For people that don't wear corrective lenses, use "reading glasses" and constantly put them on and take them off as you switch between looking at close/distant things. This is my situation. It sucks. I only have one really good pair of reading glasses; I am starting to think the strategy of having a dozen pairs all over the house might be a better option. What's worse, for me personally, is that I get motion sick really quickly with the glasses on. I have to work quickly when I need them to see something.
dugmartin 5y ago
Presbyopia sneaks up on you. A few years ago I was teasing my older brother (in his early 50s) about the reading glasses he was wearing. He told me to try them out and when I did I felt like a gained a super-power - I hadn't realized my closeup vision had become "fuzzy" until then (I've had perfect vision all my life). Fast forward to today, my wife and I, both 50, have many sets of dollar store 1.25x reading glasses strewn around the house. I try to only use them when absolutely needed. I imagine an optometrist visit is in my future within the next few years but I'm trying to hold out.
- rootusrootus 5y ago
  My wife, who is three years younger than me, used to tease me when she caught me squinting at something, or doing the old 'look through your fingertips' trick to see read some fine print. Now she doesn't laugh anymore. Everyone I've talked to says basically the same thing as you. It sneaks up. You don't realize at first the compensations you are using, unless someone says something. Or when the first thing you do on a new computer is crank up the font size. LOL.
- the_d3f4ult 5y ago
  You already figured out the solution. The optometrist isn't going to do much else for you unless you need a distance prescription.

the_d3f4ult 5y ago

Lasik will not correct presbyopia unless you intentionally make yourself near-sighted. In that case you would need glasses for distance