Presbyopia Treatment in Chicago, IL

Presbyopia Symptoms and Signs

Due to the inability to focus on near tasks, people with this age-related eye condition can experience several of the following symptoms in addition to the obvious reading difficulties:

• Ocular strain;
• Headaches, often severe;
• Fatigue;
• Blurred distance vision after prolonged reading;
• Need to have increased lighting to read small fonts;
• Need to hold objects further away to see them;
• Need to wear reading glasses or add a bifocal to distance glasses.

‍PRK

As with LASIK, PRK may also be an option to treat presbyopia. Much like the LASIK procedure, the success of PRK in treating presbyopia will depend greatly on the patient's overall corrective error or prescription. PRK for presbyopia may be a great option to help lessen one's dependency on corrective lenses. Scheduling a consultation with your doctor would determine whether this laser eye treatment for presbyopia is appropriate for you.

Non-Surgical Presbyopia Treatment

Glasses

If you have prescription corrective lenses because of nearsightedness, farsightedness, or astigmatism, your options for presbyopia management include:

• Prescription reading glasses: Used only for reading;
• Bifocals: Glasses with two distinct optical powers. The top of a bifocal lens is for distance vision, and the bottom is for near vision;
• Trifocals: The lenses of these glasses contain corrections for near, intermediate, and distant tasks;
• Progressive multifocals: Unlike trifocals, these progressive lenses do not have any visible horizontal lines and instead have various powers for correcting focus at different distances — distance, middle distance, and close-up;
• Office progressives: Lenses that provide corrections for both computer-distance viewing and close-up work.

Contacts

Just like glasses, contact lenses are another form of presbyopia therapy that can help you see better:

• Bifocal contact lenses: Two distinct focal points, typically near and far, to help you see more clearly. They are available in soft, or hard materials;
• Multifocal contact lenses: Can have more than two focal points, including an intermediate area about three feet away from the eye;
• Monovision contact lenses: One eye is outfitted with a lens designed to help you focus on objects at a distance, while the other eye has a lens to aid in near vision;
• Modified monovision contact lenses:  With modified monovision, you wear one lens in one eye for either near or far vision and a multifocal lens in the other to see at all distances.

Presbyopia Causes

For most people in their 40s and 50s, presbyopia results from the natural age-related loss of near vision.

Common causes of blurred vision include:

• Thinning of the eye's natural lens;
• Loss of elasticity in muscle fibers that help the eye focus;
• Changes in shape or curvature of the eye's lens;
• Decrease in the amount of water in the eye's lens that provides nourishment to the lens;
• Damage to the eye's nerve fibers that focus images.

Your eyes have a soft and flexible lens in the early stages of life. Because of this, when you switch your vision from something far away to something close-up, the lens can adjust its shape easily.

Now, as you age, your eye's lens grows in layers, like an onion. This thickening makes the lens less flexible, preventing light from focusing correctly on the retina and causing presbyopia (blurry vision).

Presbyopia affects everyone eventually, regardless of how good their close-up vision was previously. It's an unavoidable part of aging, and anyone who lives long enough will need treatment for presbyopia.