I’m nearsighted. I have worn contact lenses most of the time since I was 18 yr. old. I’m now 44, and having trouble seeing up close. I can use some weak reading glasses with the contacts to make things alright.
But, I have noticed that when I wear regular glasses (for nearsightedness, no correction for reading, same prescription as the contacts) I can see pretty well up close.
So, why do my glasses work okay for close work, but not the contacts?
Not to hijack the thead or anything (I hate to do that before the OP is answered), I have a second glasses question. Why is it that glasses work backwards. That is, if I look through my glasses the opposite way (with the earpieces pointed away from my face) I can still see clearly. It would seem that my vision should get ALOT worse, but it still get’s better.
I have a similar problem (one of the joys of turning 40), and asked my opthalmologist about it last year when I got a new prescription for contacts. He said that I could invest in some of the new expensive bifocal contact lenses, which most (including mine) insurance programs don’t cover. He also said that I could get a pair of non-presciption reading glasses at my local drugstore for about ten bucks, and use them until my eyesight requires a stronger solution.
I got the cheap glasses and have had no problems. I wear them (while my contacts are in) whenever I do extensive reading or close work. I also wear them when my contacts are not in while reading in bed, but that is becoming less comfortable, so I may invest in a slightly stronger pair of cheap glasses for bedtime reading. YMMV
Nearsighted is when you can’t see things up close clearly, right? In the UK that’s longsighted but you don’t really need to know that.
My father and myself are both shortsighted (things close are clear but nothing else) quite badly. I can only see about 4 inches in front of my face clearly without correction and my dad’s the same. We both have contacts and wear them most days but when it comes to close up work, say getting splinters out of skin we find contacts useless. They don’t seem to provide the resolution is the best way I can describe it. Glasses are fine though. Everything nice and clear no matter where it is.
So, not helping out with the question but at least you know it’s not just you.
Are you looking at things close up through your glasses? Or are you perhaps unconciously peering over them to look at things close up? When I got contacts after decades of wearing glasses, I spent a year trying to look over the non-existent frames whenever I needed to closely examine something.
speckfisher: I had pretty much the same conversation with my optometrist. In my case, however, I cannot use the non-prescription reading glasses alone. I can read pretty well without any correction at all. It’s when I put in the contacts that I can’t see up close.
Lumpy, yes, I’m talking about reading through the glasses, not peeking over them.
Contacts move with your eyes and the degree of correction stays the same throughout the range of motion.
Glasses do not move with your eyes and the degree of correction can change depending on what part of the lens you peer through.
It is possible that part of your eyeglass lense is ground to a satisfactory prescription for you to use this area for reading- this is all unintentional, of course.
with my degree of extreme myopia i wouldn’t need bifocals with my regular glasses. when wearing contacts, i would need magnification for small close work. my glasses correct to about 20/40, my contacts correct to 20/20. it is amazing what that little bit will do. the 20/40 seems to protect close, small, sight. things get a bit blurry in the distance with my glasses (ie name tags on doors and walls), and things get a bit tricky up close with my contacts (cross stitching). now i choose what to wear with what activity i’m doing.
i was happy to hear that as my eyes age my myopia will “get better.” the good news is that the gap between my eyes is narrowing. i went from 750 to 700 right eye and 650 to 625 left eye.
one reason i decided against lazer surg. was that i would end up still having to wear glasses, for reading and close work. i may as well keep wearing the ones i have.
No. Nearsighted = myopic = shortsighted = you can see things that are close, but not things that are far away.
Another theory, your glasses lens are kind of made on a plane more than a sphere, therefore the lower portion of your lens,where I think most people look thru to read,is not as close to your cornea as the center part,that we look thru to see off into the distance. Proove it by pressing your glasses closer to your eyes, your vision will be sharper(at least mine is).
Well, there’s a lot of tangents and speculation being tossed about, but little to address the OP’s question, which is basically:
Why can’t I focus close-up with my contacts?
I don’t have an answer but am also curious to read one!
I have extremely severe myopia and have the same problem. It’s not a problem with glasses - I wore spectacles for years. But with contacts, I can’t focus closer than about 14" from my face.
It’s so bad, that ladybug thought I was presbyopic when we first started dating!
I do a lot of close-up, precision assembly work, and to be able to see small parts and small print when I wear contacts, I have to wear pretty strong reading glasses: 4 to 5x magnicifation!
I can take out my contacts, and then I can focus so closely to my face that I can make out extremely small details with my naked eye… some features as small as a few dozen microns, given appropriate lighting and contrast. No, I am not bullshitting, either.
The tradeoff is that I can’t see anything farther than a foot away without vision correction.
But my middle- and far-distance vision is so much better with contacts than with spectacles, I will never go back to the latter.
Here’s another way this situation manifests itself. I have an office job. Most days I sit at a desk with contacts. Generally, I can see the computer screen well enough (although some days are better than others) but I’ll have to grab reading glasses to read print on the desk or in my lap. However, days when I wear glasses without contacts I have no troubles seeing either the computer screen, or things on the desk.