Various types of reading glasses

People with presbyopia have difficulty in reading close materials and they need a reading power in their eyeglass lenses. Without the help from reading glasses, these patients usually hold reading materials at arm’s length to get clear view. There are currently several feasible solutions to presbyopic eyesight. While many presbyopic individuals resort to bifocals, trifocals and progressive lenses, single-vision reading glasses are more suitable for a person who is a first-time eyeglasses wearer. Compared with traditional single vision readers, multifocal readers involve more complex power fitting and prescription adjustment. This article gives a comprehensive introduction to single-vision reading glasses.

Full frame and half-eye reading glasses

Reading glasses have two main types: full frame reading glasses and half-eye reading glasses. The first type refers to readers that have a reading prescription across the entire lens, while the second form incorporates a similar prescription only at the bottom half of the lens. It is hard to claim that one is superior to the other. Generally speaking, they have both advantages while under different uses. More specifically, full frame reading glasses are suitable for long period close-up tasks but they will probably bring blurry distance vision. Half-eye reading glasses have an additional top part for distance vision.

Other variations

Reading glasses are available in tiny foldable and magnifier types. Foldable reading glasses are portable and bring additional convenience. Magnifier forms of reading glasses provide a much wider area of magnification, which provides more comfortable sight during long-time book reading. Plastic lenses mounted in credit card-sized holders are a special style of reading glasses. During outdoor activities, it is advisable to wear reading glasses with UV treatment. An alternative is sunglass bifocals which have an upper half for viewing faraway objects and a reading prescription in the lower part for outdoor reading.

Custom-made readers are superior to ready-made ones

Reading glasses are available in the form of non-prescription ready-made types and custom-made prescription ones. Pre-made reading glasses from pharmacies are much cheaper than custom-made reading glasses from opticians. Both of these two types should never be confused with computer glasses. Reading glasses are particularly for close materials reading but computer screens are always situated in intermediate vision zone. Computer tasks require exclusive prescription computer glasses.

Pre-made reading glasses come in plenty of styles and colors for your selection. Since they are inexpensive, you can keep several pairs in different places, such as room, car, office, brief case, purse, boat etc… However, ready-made reading glasses do have some drawbacks. In most cases, the two lenses of a pair of ready-made reading glasses have a same prescription at a fixed number of PD like 62, which does not fit people with different severities in two eyes. Imprecise prescriptions are likely to cause certain side effects such as headache, eyestrain and even nausea. Customized reading glasses are more probably to provide exact prescription your eyes need. In addition, some ready-made reading glasses may contain defects such as bubbles and waves.

Do not skip an eye exam

Pre-made reading glasses are convenient that wearers can simply purchase another pair with a higher prescription if they experience a prescription change. But this way of skipping an eye exam for precise prescription evaluation may mask potential vision problems. Prescription changes can result from both natural aging and underlying eye diseases such as glaucoma. When it is the eye’s aging process that causes myopia progression, it is ok to buy pre-made readers simply. But getting ready-made reading glasses with a higher prescription will never help if the vision deterioration is caused by an eye disease. During a comprehensive eye exam, your doctor may detect early signs of serious underlying eye problems.