Who ends up needing reading glasses?
Everybody ends up needing reading glasses. This is universal. There are people who had great vision their whole life. They said, "I'm eagle eyes. I can see everything far away." Now they're in their 40s, and they're having trouble reading, and it's really disturbing to them.
When does presbyopia begin?
Typically, you first become symptomatic in your 40s, requiring a low-plus lens, usually a +1. And then it moves up to about a +3. So as we age we end up needing a little bit more over time.
What kind of glasses are available?
They now sell reading glasses in the drugstore. Those work fine for many people. And for people who already need corrective lens for distance, there are glasses called progressives that have a different power on the top for distance, and the bottom power has reading power. They look like normal glasses, but they actually give you good distance vision and good reading vision. Bifocals are the glasses where you actually can see the line in the glass. Those work terrifically but in our youth-oriented culture, people don't like to wear glasses that make them look old, so to speak.
And now there are contact lenses that act like bifocals that give you distance and near vision, and some patients do very well with those.
What is monovision?
Monovision is where you correct one eye for distance and the other eye for reading. Sometimes they call it blended vision because you actually continue to use both eyes together. It is just that one eye is doing more of the distance vision, the other one is doing more of the reading vision.
