Reading Glasses Guide: Choosing, Using & Caring for Your Glasses

If your arms suddenly aren't long enough to read the paper, consider yourself lucky--you have survived your youth and are still around to develop presbyopia, an age-related vision problem. Presbyopia occurs when your eyes' internal lenses lose the ability to change their shape. Following are steps for using reading glasses to help you see better should you be having issues with deteriorating eyesight.

Instructions

• 1

  Determine your reading needs. If you spend extended periods of time reading, you may want full-sized lenses, which are more comfortable to wear, but will make distant objects blurry. If you look up from your reading frequently, you should get half lenses you wear low on your nose so you can look over them at distant objects.

• 2

  Try over-the-counter glasses first. Buy one pair and see if you can read clearly without eyestrain or headaches.

• 3

  Get more than one pair if over-the-counter glasses work for you. Put a pair in every room where you read, in your purse or car, and on your desk at work. They aren't very expensive, so buying multiple pair won't empty your bank account.

• 4

  See your optometrist if you can't find an over-the-counter pair of glasses you can use comfortably. He or she can prescribe a pair to meet your exact prescription and reading needs. These glasses will be considerably more expensive however.

• 5

  Consider no-line progressive lenses if you already wear glasses and the idea of using bifocals is an unpleasant one.