Is this normal when your eyesight starts to decline?

[SEW77]

I am late 40s and the last few weeks I've noticed my eyesight has started to decline - when reading I've to hold it further away from me. I don't wear glasses and have never had an eye test but I'm going to book one soon.

I've noticed when I leave my office in the evening, it's dark, I'm waiting for my bus but as all different buses start to come along I feel dazzled by all the lights coming at me and can't focus to see what number bus is. Is this normal with worsening eyesight?

Yes, they are entitled to a free eye test every year
My dd has had glasses since she was 18 months old due to having a squint and long sight and has had regular eye tests since.

Ds had a screening eye check at nursery before starting school and then annual eye tests since. He had no glasses and then glasses for long sight for a short while and then didn't need any and now he needs them for short sight (He is 17 now and on to the 2 year schedule for adults)

Opticians check for much more than vision issues. They also keep an eye (sorry!) on your overall eye health and any issues you might have that aren't necessarily noticeable without a professional examining you.

I have the opposite in that reading on my phone is fine but can't see text clearly more than about 3 feet away. Mind you I only just realised you can up the text size on a phone- doesn't work on everything but it does sites and apps that are optimised for this- much easier close up!!

I was a teacher and my students told me I was holding a text book further and further away to read it. Opticians confirmed I needed glasses for reading. I was 42.

And some adults. I get nhs tests every 12 months for free because it's felt to be clinically necessary (family history of macular degeneration, wet and dry, and glaucoma).

Yep. All kids should go to the opticians at least once a year.

Yeah DH's life was likely saved by an eye test last year which picked up an entirely unrelated health condition. So regular tests are important (thouhh mine is now 6 months overdue so I'm not one to talk!)

Yes, I go every year and have done my entire life (I have a complex prescription so mine are free, my DCs always went every year too from age about 4 but it dropped to every two years in their teens). It is really important, it's quite shocking to me to hear of people in their 40s who've never been.

Also very normal to start needing glasses for both astigmatism and reading in your 40s/50s, most people I know have needed reading glasses from about 50 onwards.

I'm glad you're getting annual checkups with that family history — it's reassuring to feel that someone keeping tabs on things.

Until recently, I always had free annual NHS tests, due to several risk factors for serious eye problems. At my last checkup, though, they told me I've been moved from 12-monthly to the standard 2 years (policy change, I think; my risk factors haven't changed).

2 years felt uncomfortably long to me with my medical and family history, so I asked if I could alternate NHS and paid checkups at my optician's, to top myself back up from 2-yearly to yearly tests. But apparently the eligibility rules mean I can't — my NHS entitlement is to a free routine test two years after my last test, whether that test was NHS or private. So I'd have to pay privately every year, never getting to that 2 year point.

I mean, I do get it, in a way. Really. The NHS doesn't have infinite funds, and should pay only for what it believes is clinically necessary, not what might make me more comfortable. And okay, why would the NHS pay for a new test if one was done only a year ago, and they've decided that, actually, every two years is fine? (And, I suppose, being willing to pay for an extra eye test every other year demonstrates that I can pay, if necessary, so I personally probably shouldn't be a funding priority.)

But it does bother me a bit, this almost perverse incentive they've created. It would be no skin off the NHS's nose if people in my position had extra tests between the NHS ones. Problems found a bit earlier might even be easier/cheaper for the NHS to treat. But no, if you add those tests back in, no NHS eye tests for you. They'd rather either make you pay for all your eye checkups, or enforce a 2 year gap and potentially leave problems brewing longer than they have to. It seems… potentially counterproductive.

Something else I have noticed and forgot to mention, if I'm looking at my phone for a while and then look at the television, it takes a few seconds to focus clearly on the TV

It's interesting people say about reading glasses-I have no trouble close up, just distance but do feel that although I can read close up no problem that my eyes get sore and feel strained doing it!! Anyone else had that- I do have chronic dry eyes though- came on after covid and I don't think that helps

I wish my eyesight was as good as yours, OP!

google presbyopia
A friend of mine who's an optometrist took great pleasure in telling me about it as he is a few years younger than me 😂😂
comes to us all apparently

Yes I knew for some adults (eg my husband) but I didn't know kids were meant to have eye tests every year. I didn't, and ds didn't!

Yes I feel eye strain when I try to focus on small print, close up, in poor light. I kind of feel my forehead shrivelling up if that makes sense?

@lieselotte yep-

I get the magnifying ones from the pharmacy. I’m almost 55 and have just graduated to the +2

That’s normal for your age - the change in vision is due to the lens in the eye thickening.

the glare thing may be just astigmatism, but a couple of other eye conditions can also cause glare. So it needs to be checked out.

Sounds normal! Alas. I'm now wearing varifocals and have developed an astigmatism aged 50