Bifocals

[Talon87]

I don't want to hear anyone here ever again say that they feel way too old. Not unless ...

• you have a stroke (God forbid)
• you develop cancer (God forbid)
• you have a heart attack (God forbid)
• you break your hip (God forbid)
• you throw a disc (God forbid)
• you're prescribed bifocals (JOIN THE CLUB )

Mock seriousness aside, yeah ... I feel really old now. I'd noticed my vision changing over the past year or so, and it had been getting progressively more noticeable over the past two months. On Thanksgiving, I noted this to my mother (who was mentioning that my sister had just had her eyes checked) and we decided to have mine examined in December. It was postponed until January, and the entire time I felt like I noticed my vision deteriorating. So I was getting kinda antsy about what the optometrist would find when she looked inside my eyes. My appointment was today, and ...

The good news? She didn't see any signs of pathologic change in my eyes. No retinal tears, no arteriolar pathologies, no dead spots, no inflammation of the optic nerve, no nothing: she said my eyes looked very healthy. Good.

The bad news? Apparently I need bifocals now. ^^; The average age for bifocals is 40 years old, she said. (I was surprised by this. Figured it'd be 50.) She said that while she has many patients who don't need bifocals until 50, she has just as many who need them at age 30. (Hooray math! Hooray averages! ) Not sure if she was saying that just to comfort me or what ^^; , but yeah.

The worse news? Apparently bifocals make it a bitch to a) use a traditional computer screen and to b) watch films or television while lying down in bed or on a couch. Considering I do these things daily, damn it. ^^;

I go to get them next week. I'll be sure to keep you guys posted on whether I love them, hate them, or a mix of both. I'm expecting the mix of both. I think I'm going to hate not being able to watch things while lying down (which was like 50% of the reason I'd begun to notice my visual changes -- as it was becoming harder to read subtitles from bed) but considering that these are my first new pair of glasses in over half a decade, I think I'm going to enjoy the upgraded corrections to my pretty horrendous astigmatism. I'm also not entirely convinced about the viewing-things-while-lying-down bit, so if that ends up being a false alarm then I'll be quite pleased. But yeah: when my vision of the computer screen is blurrier from where I'm sitting right now (old glasses on) than it is when I lean two feet forward like an old granpda , that's when I know something's up.

Still not exactly sure what caused the change in the first place or the seemingly more rapid change over the past two months, but because I hadn't had an eye exam in so long it's hard for the doctor to tell. Will have to come back in a year and have another exam to try and determine whether it's A or B:

1. my eyes had been gradually changing over the past 5+ years but it wasn't until I went over a threshold point some time last year that I actually began to notice these changes
2. my eyes had been pretty stable right on up until a year ago, and then a year ago something happened and ever since then my eyes have been rapidly changing i.e. I'm an X-Man

Hopefully I won't need to go back before the year is up: I'm still a little anxious given just how much change I feel like I noticed over the last eight weeks, but we'll see.

[Loki]

How odd that after ten years of not seeing an eye doctor, the last time I saw him he said my eyes got better. Hurray for sitting next to a computer/TV all day. I think.

I hear bifocals have an awkward transition period that most people don't enjoy. Most people I know avoided it by buy two sets of glasses which they use for different moments. Reading Glasses for reading, other set for everything else.

[Talon87]

That's also what I've heard, but I know me: unless the bifocals suck ass even after weeks of adjustment to them, I'm going to like having them more than I would like having to either:

1. carry around 2+ separate pairs of monofocal lenses for the rest of my life. Carrying one pair by virtue of wearing it on your face is easy, but the second pair will have to be kept on hand in either a side pocket or a shirt breastpocket. No thank you.
2. wear the far(er)-sighted pair when outdoors, leaving the near(er)-sighted pair at home, only to curse at life when I can't make things out that are close to me. (Bees on flowers? Bibles handed to me by the Gideons? McDonald's sandwich wrappers? )

I like the Swiss army knife nature of progressive lenses (from what I have heard and read about them). It's kind of like I "upgraded" and have two or even three prescriptions to choose from now instead of only one. It kind of reminds me of my iPhone: it asks me to lend it one pocket and in exchange it serves as my phone, MP3 player, on-the-go Internet browser, flashlight, digital camera, and much more. It's totally better to have an iPhone in your pocket than it is to try and cram all of those things in there; and similarly, I feel like it might prove better to have immediate access in my visual field to two to three prescriptions and not just one prescription apiece on two to three different pairs of glasses.

[The Morg]

For some reason, I automatically think people with glasses are cooler. Even old geezers with bifocals. :P

[Doppleganger]

I imagine my eyes and my teeth deteriorating all the time. The professionals say it's in my head, but I know the truth. There's definitely some deterioration going on, it's just so incremental that the doctors can't perceive it year after year, it would only be noticeable if I say had a checkup in 2007 and then one in 2014.

I don't know anyone with bifocals so I can't really say anything. My distance vision sucks donkey dangles, which is a pain because my hearing has never been good. Where are my senses to make up for my diminishing sense power?

[Lunar Delta]

Sucks for you. I recently had my eyesight tested. 20/13 vision in both eyes at 30 years old. No out of focus areas, astigmatisms, color issues, etc. In fact, I actually have more acute color vision than most people. Lucky me. Too bad I had to pay for these eyes with every social anxiety issue known to man. I'd almost rather just wear bifocals. :P

[Talon87]

Originally Posted by PiccoloNamek

Sucks for you. I recently had my eyesight tested. 20/13 vision in both eyes at 30 years old. No out of focus areas, astigmatisms, color issues, etc. In fact, I actually have more acute color vision than most people. Lucky me. Too bad I had to pay for these eyes with every social anxiety issue known to man. I'd almost rather just wear bifocals. :P

Almost.

[Talon87]

Whoops, so I forgot to bump this thread several weeks ago. I ended up not being able to get my bifocals for a long time because of hazardous driving conditions, but I was finally able to get the glasses a few weeks ago and have been using them daily since then.

First, the non-bifocal elements of the discussion. 1) I like these new glasses for being scratch-free, for starters. ^^; My old pair had become quite scratched up as their anti-scratch coating peeled away and it eventually got to a point where I couldn't really choose to "see past them" the way I have been able to see all my life while wearing remarkably dirty glasses, something friends and family have remarked on many a time. That was when I knew they were bad: when even I was feeling the constant need to take them off and clean them to improve visibility. And of course cleaning would do nothing: they were scratched up, not dirty. 2) I dislike these new glasses for how easily they smear. I have no idea what it is, but all my life my glasses have gotten very dirty very quickly. Even when I make a conscious effort to keep my hands absolutely away from my face, the glasses will become super smeared in just a few hours. I'm not sure if it's caused by my eyelashes on the inside lens, me subconsciously grazing the front of the lenses with my fingers, or both, but whatever it is, my glasses require frequent cleaning. Well ... older pairs would only have to be cleaned maybe once every 8 hours or so. (And despite this I would clean them only once each day.) But these new glasses, I don't know what it is but, when they smear they smear, to the point that I find myself choosing to clean them no fewer than two times a day and sometimes as often as four times a day. It's pretty ridiculous.

Now, the bifocal elements of the discussion, which is what I'm sure most of you are interested in.

Well, for starters, let me just go ahead and say this: I don't really use these glasses as bifocals very much. ^^; I find myself wanting to stare out of the middle portion whenever possible. Only when I cannot, when something is visibly out of focus no matter how much I try to bring it into focus, do I then experiment by trying either the higher or the lower fields of the lenses. The reason for this is, I think, because there isn't much of a prescription difference between the three fields. I think if the three fields were like no distance prescription, distance prescription, and then telescopic prescription then I would probably bounce between all three pretty frequently, with the no distance prescription being for reading things up close, the distance prescription being for looking at things 5-10 feet away, and the telescopic prescription being for looking at things 20+ feet away. But as it is, I notice no difference between the top field of the lens (supposedly for the viewing of far objects) and the middle field of the lens, and I see only a minor difference between the middle field and the bottom field.

Second, I know this will sound strange but I've noticed that it is easier to read roadsigns when using the BOTTOM field over either of the others. It's the damnedest thing. Road signs ought to fall within the domain of the top field of the lenses, the portion intended for far vision. The bottom field is supposed to be the "reading glasses" bit meant for viewing things up close. Despite this, I find that when I am driving road signs appear at "normal clarity" when I look out the center of the lens but appear in "fucking awesome clarity" when I look out the bottom portion of the lens.

Third, I was warned that I could not watch television from bed with bifocals. Well, the verdict on that is mixed. While I am able to watch most things from bed just fine, my bed setup is probably much more inclined than most people's. I have two pillows that I rest my head on when watching things from bed, and I tend to watch things with my back on the bed, not my right or left sides. I'll do all three positions, but flat-on-the-back viewing is the most common. So, with my back on the bed and my head inclined at a ... I dunno, anywhere between a 30° and 60° angle, I find that I can watch television just fine. But go figure: this is probably because my pupils line up with the middle field of the lenses, which are the fields intended for 10-foot viewing anyway. However! If I do turn to my right or left side, or if I do recline with my head lower (say a 15° to 20° angle of inclination), then yes, I find that it's difficult to watch television. And I think that's because my eyes are looking through the bottom field of the lenses (the reading glasses portion) and so it makes things appear somewhat out of focus.

Fourth, I was warned that I would have to start moving my neck around a lot (because the sweet spot for any given distance is so small with bifocals) rather than being able to move my eyeballs around in their sockets (because the sweet spot for monofocal lenses is the entire friggin' lens). I'm not sure if I'm doing it subconsciously or not, of course, but I can say that I have not caught myself doing this much at all. And by that I mean 0 known cases and maybe 1 or 2 suspect cases. For the entire past three or four weeks I've had these glasses. On the contrary, I have noticed that I continue to move my eyes in their sockets -- and there's very rarely any penalty for this. I think that this may be related to the observation that the prescriptions in the three fields of the lenses do not seem all that different to me. I imagine that if the differences between the regions were more drastic then I would be more severely penalized for flitting my eyes about behind the lenses rather than focusing on one square millimeter of glass and craning my neck about to take in the world around me. Anyway, no neck pain, no neck stiffness, nothing.

So ... in conclusion, I don't know if I'm really qualified to weigh in on whether bifocals rock or suck balls yet. Because I almost feel like my bifocals are impostor bifocals and are not representative of most pairs. ^^; Do I feel that they were worth double the cost of regular glasses (which is what they did in fact cost)? Not really. ^^; I feel like I'm using them like monofocal glasses and so I would've been happy to save money getting monofocal lenses if I'd known it was going to be like this. But do I feel like bifocals suck and have taken a lot of effort to get used to? No, not at all. While the differences in the prescriptions are slight, they are noticeable sometimes and can, in those instances, be fun to take advantage of. "Oh no, this text isn't quite as clear. I could super-strain my eyes or ................... I could just lift my head by like 0.2 inches and voilà! Clarity! " I think if this was happening all the time, a) I'd have more of the reported neck problems, a con ^^; but b) I'd also be seeing a lot more of the benefits in owning bifocals over owning monofocal lenses, a pro.

[Loki]

I couldn't read it all. When I got to the part where you said your glasses were scratched up to the point that you were almost constantly trying to clean them, I just imagined how horrible your vision should have been and how you were still driving around with that.

[Talon87]

Originally Posted by Loki

I couldn't read it all. When I got to the part where you said your glasses were scratched up to the point that you were almost constantly trying to clean them, I just imagined how horrible your vision should have been and how you were still driving around with that.

No, but seriously, it hasn't been like this. With old glasses, it couldn't get this bad even at how (in)frequently I cleaned them. With these new glasses, it could conceivably get this bad, but I'd have to let the glasses go uncleaned for several days in a row first.