Various types of reading glasses

Friday, January 8th, 2010 at 5:57 pm Post in Eyeglasses

People with presbyopia have difficulty in reading close materials and they need reading prescription in their lenses. 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.

Reading glasses have two main types: full frame reading glasses and half-eye reading glasses. Full reading glasses are suitable for long period close-up tasks but bring blurry distance vision. Half-eye reading glasses have additional top parts for distance vision.

Reading glasses are available in tiny foldable and magnifier types. Plastic lenses on credit card-sized holders are special styles of reading glasses. During outdoor activities, you can wear reading glasses with UV treatment. A sunglass bifocal lens has an upper half for far away objects and a reading prescription in the lower part for outdoor reading.

Reading glasses are non-prescription glasses so that both custom-made and ready-make types are available. 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 rooms, 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, which does not fit people with different prescriptions 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 prescriptions your eyes need. In addition, some ready-made reading glasses may contain defects such as bubbles and waves.

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. During a comprehensive eye exam, your doctor may detect early signs of underlying eye problems.