I’d anyone else completely furious about age related eyesight loss?

[EvangelicalAboutButteredToast]

Honestly it was the one thing my body actually had going for it and now my eyesight is a sad, blurry affair. I spend my whole time looking for my reading glasses and I hate it so much.

I used to do a lot of close up creative work that just isn’t the same now my eyesight has gone. I put my make up on each morning and I’ve no idea if I’m blending stuff well anymore it’s a bit hit and miss I think and I don’t have time to really scrutinise it. if there are chin hairs I can’t see them. I really want to try the eye drops that have supposedly been developed for this, but they don’t seem to be easily available in this country yet.

if i could buy new eyeballs I absolutely would.

Be thankful you don't have AMD. Before she died I took my mother for regular treatment which involved an injection into the eyeball. 😳 Needing varifocals is a breeze in comparison.

I've worn distance for a good few years but now I need reading glasses too. It drives me mad. Can't check my phone quickly while watching tv, can't look at the person I'm typing a form for in between typing, can't take a photo quickly while out for a walk.

It's not having to wear varifocals that has bothered me. They're absolutely brilliant, even if I do need a sit down each time I need to pay for new ones. It's the bloody cataract I had to have removed last year - just in one eye, one that has been a bit crap for as long as I can remember - and now it's gone, it turns out that eye is still crap and will be for ever. Colours do look nicer through it now, though.

My mum needs regular eye injections. They're horrible.

I nearly started a thread about this the other week! Lost a perfectly good pair of reading glasses in this situation. Thought I'd put them in my pocket but obviously had just dropped them.

I had perfect vision until my mid 40s so finding it hard to adjust. It's got worse really quickly as well!

@Runskiyoga you can get surgery for this! Not considered cosmetic if your vision is affected.

Someone needs to create a lorgnette (without the handle) for reading in bed on your side.

My dh has a pair of the JML Mighty Sight glasses that someone bought him as a joke present because he was always losing his reading glasses - jokes on them, he absolutely loves them (and drives me mad reading in bed at night with them on).

I never knew people read in beds on their sides! I have always had to wear distance glasses even for that. I am worried that there will come a time when I can't see anything at all clearly because my distance vision loss and close vision loss will converge in the middle. At the moment there's a clear spot about 2" from my nose so at least I can hold my phone close to my face to read it. Can't do anything else much without glasses or contacts. I have my contacts slightly under corrected for distance to help with close up but it feels as though my prescription is constantly changing now and that I am always at the opticians.

Has anyone had laser eye surgery? Reviews?

I got my first readers last summer, I'm not too bad without, but I know where it's heading.

I found a new thing I can't do anymore last weekend which made me sad. DH and I went for a walk in some glorious countryside. I couldn't fecking well read the OS map. I love maps, and now I'm going to have to carry glasses to go for a fucking walk.

Yes this! They talk about the power of the grey pound and how much spending power the older generation have... I'm not even in that bracket yet and I can't read packets.

I've decided I'm going to take pics and name and shame on Twitter.

Varifocals? I have an assortment of eye problems, some age related, others present from birth. I have had my cataracts removed so have better distance vision, but still need to be able to read, and read music. So ..... varifocals.

I have lots of floaters because of vitreous detachment but just take these on the chin and get on with life. I have drusen and cystic spaces and a whole raft of similar crap, but I function well with varifocals. I cannot imagine being out and about and having to keep putting on near glasses to see labels.

Having spent my life being blind in the shower, with the cataracts removed I can see where I am and what I am doing, which is a huge bonus.

I love maps, and now I'm going to have to carry glasses to go for a fucking walk. - or get some varifocals and wear them all the time. The top section of the varifocals would be almost clear glass, but the bottom would have prescription you need for reading map.

I've had lens replacement in one eye, I can see fine because my brain adapted but a few years down the line I think my other eye lens needs replacing.

I had it done early 2020 when I was 49 as considered too old for laser... great, another thing I'm too old for!

Lens replacement doesn't wear off as they fit a lens that is man made, so it can't degenerate like your normal one can. The reason your eyesight gets worse in old age is that the lens muscle weakens so it can't focus/zoom. The new lens can't get weaker so it's fixed for life...it won't get cataracts either.

I got long sighted in my early 40s and got sick of wearing dirty glasses or losing them or having only one pair of sunglasses cos they are so expensive for varifocals, which is what I had. So ended up with the lens replacement.

Best £4k I ever spent!

Although this thread is the one that no one wants to be on, I am so glad that I found it. My eye sight has definitely deteriorated and I thought that it was due to the amount of work I do on my laptop - but after reading this, I fear that it is age related. Has anyone found that one eye is affected more than the other?

It is driving me crazy. I am mostly frustrated because I am having to make compromises on my distance vision in order to get adequate correction on my close and mid vision. I am still officially safe to drive, but I preferred my the extremely crisp corrected distance vision I had before. I’ve become increasingly hesitant to drive at night and in winter when it gets dark so early that is a problem. I still have a teenager and live rurally so it’s not like I can just modify my lifestyle.

@Mayim I've got -1.75 on one eye and-2.75 on the other!!

I hear you (and everyone else) OP.

I'm short-sighted, though not hugely so (-2ish). So I have contact lenses that are ok, but I can't drive in the dark in them. Varifocals for days I need to drive in the dark (all of fecking winter), but I don't like using them at my desk at work as I keep having to tilt my head while using two screen so keep taking them off and forgetting to put them back on when I go to a meeting.

I have great varifocal sunglasses (I think the much bigger lens than regular glasses makes them easier to use), but can only use them on sunny days I don't have my contacts in. Green lens instead of brown (recommended by my optician) was a game changer for me too, I can see everything much clearer.

But it's just a faff trying to make sure I leave the house with the right collection of eye correcting aids each day.

And agree with tiny small print labels, menus in low light restaurants (font too small or too light coloured).

I know there are much worse eyesight problem to have, but ageing eyes are annoying!

That's me too. I keep my contact lenses slightly under corrected so I can still read in them and they are legal for driving but I am getting glasses with a small extra -prescription for driving. I do a lot of cross country driving after dark and over the last couple of years I too have lost that crisp vision you need for driving at night.

For many years I thought I couldn’t wear varifocals. But the annoyance of going shopping in weak 2.0 readers so I could see the shelves and middle distance, and carrying a small magnifying glass to read small print, got to me. I had tried cheap varifocals which were a disaster, and then bifocals but they were no good for the price labels which were in between the two prescriptions of the bifocal, and with stronger readers 2.5 or more, labels were easier but everything around me was a blur. Finally got round to getting a pair of expensive varifocals with big frame, thinned down lenses, and its the most like the days of perfect vision I had until about age 50 or so. Just one pair of glasses most of the day - tho there are still some tricky situations of course. like trying to get a loose eyelash out of my eye, where I need at least a 12x magnifying mirror. Unfortunately the more the magnification, the more restricted the focused area. Its like a 30X jewellery loupe, it has to be a precise distance from the hallmark. It’s still easier to wear readers at the computer so I don’t have to keep finding the reading sweet spot. For reading in bed I have poundshop readers in case I fall asleep and break the arm of the specs.

When my hair was long every so often a hair would get caught in the hinge and be whipped out when I removed my glasses, but my hair is short now and staying that way.

Contact lenses I know I would end up dropping them in a hurry and it seems such a faff.

And aargh why does print have to be so small on packaging, and recycle symbols tiny and hidden in obscure corners of the container? Sometimes I think its a way of reminding me I’m old, as if it were needed.

A pp asked about laser treatment - someone I know worked beside the eye surgeons, none of them had it done, tells you all you need to know!

Contact lenses are far less faff than glasses, a few seconds to put them in, a few seconds to take them out at night, and nothing else all day. Compared to glasses which get in the way all the time, get dirty, steam up, get wet in the rain and don't give great peripheral vision they win hands down for me. This is why I don't want to switch to varifocals, it would mean wearing glasses all the time instead of occasionally.

I’m an optometrist - it’s bloody annoying and I was definitely not a sympathetic to older patients when I was younger.
@EvangelicalAboutButteredToast the drops are just miotics ;they just make your pupils tiny) so you get more depth of focus.
They don’t reverse or stop the thickening of the lens which gives you blurred near vision and ultimately cataracts. They can have some severe side effects.

try some contacts?

What do you think about lens replacement? When I had my eyes tested the optometrist said to put it off as long as possible.

I’ve had to switch to my varifocal glasses as I just can’t get the same definition for my long and short vision with my varifocal lenses as I get with the glasses. I’ve had endless trials of lenses but none worked, so when I am occasionally wearing my lenses (mainly for vanity now) I have to wear my reading glasses for close up work. So frustrating - this has just happened in the last few years.

That sucks @SirChenjins . I'd be devastated if I had to give up my contacts, I detest wearing glasses.

a solution to the make up problem that works brilliantly for me is the Simple Human illuminated magnifying mirror. Only way I can do eye make up now I need readers as well as contacts. I’m so dependent on it that I’ve bought the travel one too.