Presbyopia - the eye condition you may not have heard of

It’s almost Halloween. Winter is creeping in and the evenings are getting dark.

It’s the time to sit indoors, light a fire, maybe pour a glass of wine, and curl up with a good book.

For me, this week I‘ll be reading Stephen King, having just finished a beautiful book called “The Mountains Sing” by Nguyen Phan Que Mai. It’s about hope in the bleakest of times, and about the history of Viet Nam. Highly recommended, but forgive me if I choose a lighter subject now.

This time of year, however, is often a time when people start to notice little niggles with their vision. With the fading of natural light in the evenings, you may find it becomes more difficult to read. 

Stephen Olwell

This is natural and mostly affects people from the age of 40 on. You may find that it’s easy to read things in daylight, but becomes trickier in artificial light. Reading material is easier to see at arm's length, rather than closer in.

All of this comes from normal growth inside our eyes as they get older. This is called Presbyopia (a confusing name for a simple thing). Our eye’s natural focussing lens changes shape continuously to allow us to see at different distances. However this lens grows more dense and less flexible every year, making it more difficult to change it’s shape.

It’s rare that presbyopia affects our distance vision, as the lens is relaxed when we look far away. But the loss of flexibility in the lens means that our near vision gets worse, especially in poor light. So, we find it more difficult to read small print, and we hold things far away or beside a window to make it easier. All of this can make the winter longer if we can’t enjoy our simple pleasures in comfort. 

The good news is that this is easily helped with simple reading glasses or small changes to your existing glasses. 

So, as the winter evenings come in, if you find your newspaper, book, or even phone becoming a bit more difficult to see, remember that you are not alone. There are lots and lots of other people alongside you, me included, and it may be time to have your eyes tested.

So, visit your local optician and find out how we can help. 

Stephen Olwell Opticians

10 Grafton Court

Longford

Co. Longford

Info@longfordopticians.com

043-3342653

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