A Guide to Presbyopia - What’s the Cause, Symptom and Treatment

It’s very common to get confused about presbyopia. It’s not something that you experience in early stages of your life or see it in your friends and family. Presbyopia is an aging eye disorder that’s caused by a refractive error and it affects almost everyone when they start to age. It’s a natural disorder that occurs due to aging on the eyes and it’s inability to focus at near distant objects. In presbyopia, you are not able to see nearsighted objects and have blurry vision and hard time focusing on objects. Here we will discuss what is presbyopia, presbyopia causes, presbyopia prevention and treatment for presbyopia. 

What is Presbyopia?

As we get older, the natural process of focusing or accommodation at objects decreases and we are not able to see up at upclose distance. The normal distance of vision that allows you to read and do needle work is no longer there. You experience the inability to focus at up close distance at about the age of 40 or more and this condition is called presbyopia. It’s a very natural process that everyone experiences in their 40’s or around that age. You have an immense amount of trouble focusing up close and also develop blurry vision, everyday tasks like reading the menu in a restaurant, reading a book or needle work becomes a tough job. 

You experience eye strain and headaches while doing focusing and presbyopia only goes onto increase in coming years. Once you reach your 60’s, your lens ability to change its shape to focus at near distance becomes almost lost. Presbyopia can happen with anyone and it affects even the people with farsightedness (hyperopia) or nearsightedness (myopia). Myopia and presbyopia can exist at the same time.

The onset of presbyopia in their 40’s is the risk of developing eye disease of different kinds that might cost your vision for all. Hence its very important that you go to an optometrist and get an eye test once you experience presbyopia signs and symptoms. Specscart provides 100% free eye test that’s absolutely free of charge for any group that helps you to resolve you sight problems and also the suggestion for the right type of glasses to wear. 

What are presbyopia symptoms?

The initial signs and symptoms of presbyopia are certain to happen when you are at the age of 40 or more. Here are the most common experience a person come across when they have developed presbyopia:

• You have problems reading printed objects like menu or books
• You get eye strain and headaches while reading or doing up close work
• Text or object appear blurry or unclear.
• You experience dizziness when changing your vision from distant to near or vice versa.
• You feel pain in your eyes in reading or seeing things in dim light
• You become instantly tired and exhausted while doing up close work.
• You’ll hold things at a far distance to view them properly.
• Reading or seeing things at near distance won’t be normal or comfortable.

What are presbyopia causes?

Presbyopia happens because the lenses of the eyes become stiffer as we age. It is the only reason why we develop presbyopia in our 40’s because our lens turns old and non-flexible as it used to be at initial stages of our lives. Originally, to see objects clear, the light rays pass through the lenses and focuses at the cornea to form an image. In order to see objects at different distances, our lenses change their shape to refocus from one distance to another. 

In a presbyopia person, the image forms at the back of the retina because the lenses gradually stiffen as we age. Due to stiffness and loss of elasticity in the lens, the light rays always fall at the back of the retina giving us a blurred sight.  It’s the elasticity of the lenses that allow smooth accommodation in the eyes enabling us to view distant and near vision clearly. However, the elasticity is lost when we age and our lenses turn solid hence we require corrective lenses to see objects clearly. 

You can’t do anything for the stiffness in the lenses and there are no presbyopia exercises that help you to get your normal vision back. That’s how your sight will be from the day you develop and you can use presbyopia lenses to treat your vision. If presbyopia is left untreated, you are the highest risk of developing numerous eye diseases hence using sight correction is an immense need of the moment.

What is the treatment for Presbyopia?

Presbyopia can be treated with corrective lenses, contact lenses or surgery. Glasses are the best way to get your original vision back without any complication. You can use reading glasses that are single vision lenses for allowing comfortable upclose work.  However, once you use glasses when you develop presbyopia, you feel find that when you look up from those glasses into the distance, your vision gets blurry. You have a problem while switching from up close to distance as you get an instant feeling of dizziness and blurry vision. Varifocal glasses and bifocal glasses are there to prevent such situations and render smooth change from close to distance.

Varifocal/Bifocal is used for treating presbyopia where the bifocal lens has two different proportions of focal length where the lower part of the lens allows near vision and the top part allows far distance view. However, there is a division line that separates the two different sight corrective lenses therefore there is no smooth transition.

Varifocal glasses, on the other hand, have no line and allows a smooth and gradual change in the vision from distance to up close and vice versa. Varifocal glasses have three different sections in their lenses where the top part allows distance view and middle part allows intermediate work like a computer and the bottom part allows upclose work. Instead of being a sudden change from distance to reading, the lenses gradually change from top to bottom and you can see any distance from varifocal glasses. Learn more about varifocal glasses.

What are some ways for presbyopia prevention?

There is no such method that helps you to prevent presbyopia from happening. Presbyopia is an ineveit eye condition that is bound to happen once age and reach your 40’s and 50’s. There is no presbyopia natural treatment or prevention because it happens due to a very natural process of aging. You can’t avoid or prevent yourself from aging, that’s a sad truth but it’s a fact. However, you can treat your vision with corrective lenses like reading glasses or varifocal glasses.

Don’t worry, presbyopia is not a disease but it’s a very natural condition of aging in your eyes. It can be treated with the corrective lenses and you’ll be able to see like you used to earlier. Presbyopia high or low levels depend on your age and the type of presbyopia prescription you have been advised by your optometrist. 

Bottom Line

You can’t avoid an eye condition that is natural to happen and all you can do to avoid further risk of vision loss is by wearing corrective lenses. You can get glasses or reading or single vision at Specscart for treating presbyopia. Our lenses are already customized with free fully loaded protective extras like anti-glare, anti-scratch, anti-UV and impact resistance hence you won’t need to spend any extra penny on these essentials. If you are still in doubt about presbyopia, come to us for a free eye test or order an appointment to your home for a free eye test to get things sorted. Get frames in thousands of designs sorted in beautiful variations of colours, style and material.

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