Presbyopia: why reading gets harder after 40, and the lens options

Presbyopia is the slow loss of the eye's ability to focus on things up close. It isn't a disease: it's a normal part of ageing, and it happens to everyone, including people who never needed glasses before.

Inside your eye sits a clear lens that changes shape to focus. When you're young it's soft and flexible, so it can switch easily between near and far. With age it gets harder and less flexible, and close-up things start to look blurry.

Most people notice it in their 40s. It usually keeps getting stronger for some years, then stops getting worse after about 65.

• Holding your phone, a menu or a book further away to read it
• Small print that looks blurred up close
• Tired or sore eyes after reading or close work
• Headaches after close work
• Close-up tasks, like threading a needle, getting harder

Presbyopia can come on top of short-sightedness, long-sightedness or astigmatism, so your distance glasses may still be right while reading gets harder.

An eye test checks how well each eye sees up close as well as far away. If you need help for close work, your prescription includes the reading power that suits your eyes.

At My Vision the eye test is free, with no obligation to buy.

In the early stages, simple changes can help for a while: holding things a little further away, a bigger font on your phone, and brighter reading light. As presbyopia grows, most people need glasses or contact lenses for close work.

• Reading glasses: for close work only. They suit you if presbyopia is your only vision problem. You can buy them without a prescription, but an eye test tells you the right power.
• Bifocals: one lens with two areas, far vision at the top and near vision at the bottom, divided by a line.
• Progressive (multifocal) lenses: far, middle and near in one lens, changing gradually from top to bottom with no line.
• Contact lenses: multifocal contacts, or monovision, where one eye is set for distance and the other for close up.

If you already wear glasses for distance, progressive lenses let one pair cover driving, a screen and reading. At any My Vision store you can wear our multifocal trial lens set and see how it feels before you choose your own lenses. Progressive lenses at My Vision →

• Reading glasses don't cause presbyopia: it comes with the normal ageing of the lens inside the eye, glasses or not.
• It isn't the same as long-sightedness, though both make close-up things harder to see.