I had perfect vision for all my life…till age 40. Then, horrors! things started to change.
I kept having to hold the printed page farther and farther and farther away…until my arms got too short.
So, okay, I got me some reading glasses.
One diopter, right off the shelf at Walmart.
Then a year or so later: 1.25 diopters. And a year or so after that: 1.50…etc, etc.
By age 50, I was up to 2.25 diopters, and holding steady. I still hated needing to carry glasses at all times; but I had become an expert acrobat… With perfect timing, I would match the motion of reaching into my shirt pocket with my right hand to put the glassses on, while reaching out with my left hand to pick up the page I had to read.
But now, at 59, I gradually noticed a weird “problem”: I was having trouble focussing thru my glasses.So I took them off, and BINGO!!!..I can sit up straight and see the computer screen pretty well. And over the next month or so, I find that I can start reading regular print just by picking up the piece of paper, without no need to first look around to figure out where I left my glasses.
It’s like I’m 20 years younger!
I still keep a pair of glasses with me in case there is some fine print somewhere…but basically, I am now FREE!!!
I can often go through a whole day at the office without needing them.
It’s a great feeling!
My question is: why has this happened? It it common? and How long do you think it will last?
Your eyeballs are losing elasticity as you age. This can cause vision problems to correct a bit, but after a while the process will continue and it will worsen again.
Diabetes plays havoc with eyes. Depending on how my blood sugar is running my distance glasses become my computer glasses. Being nearsighted, having Presbyopia and astigmatism, I’m normally blind as a bat…
yeah, I’ll admit that the warnings caught me by surprise, and kinda bummed me out.
Thanks, guys.
But this thread also motivated me to call my doctor for an appointment, which I would never have done otherwise.
So maybe I’ll discover that I’m going blind and have diabetes.
Or maybe the doc will give me some kind of preventative care that will save me from such a fate.
I am 67 years old and have had 20/40 vision most of my life. I wear glasses for night driving only. I have never had any need for bi focals unless it was very fine print. I noticed last year my drivig glasses were out of focus and I could see much better without them. I went in for a new prescription and my vision now tests at 20/20. Conversely my close up vision got slightly worse. I can still read newspapers but small print like a map book requires 150 bi focals.
Exactly what I was going to say. If your vision changes suddenly, one of the very first things you should do is get your blood sugar tested.
I’ve always been nearsighted. Some wild short term changes are part of what clued me in that something was wrong. Then when I went on the Diabetes meds, one day my vision went from nearsighted, to farsighted. Suddenly I had to wear cheaters to see anything up close. Then about a month later, it all went back to normal.
Adds “eyesight behaving funny” to “list of reasons to get checked for possible diabetes”. Which I already knew I was a candidate for, mind you…
That makes another reason why “getting a stable job” might be the best thing that’s happened to me since… 2001, when I got into what a few months later became my consulting career. Better access to doctors if you’re in a stable location than if you’re bouncing around between planes.
