Aging Eyes

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It happens to a lot of people around age 40. You begin to realize it takes a Herculean effort to read the newspaper or the tiny type on a food package or an aspirin bottle. As for threading a needle or removing a splinter--forget it! These simple tasks have become impossible feats.

That's because anything closer than an arm's length from your eyes is now one big blur.

You're not alone. If your far-away vision is fine (with or without corrective eyewear) but your close-up vision is fuzzier than a teddy bear's coat, blame it on an inflexible lens. And it's a problem as common as crow's feet and silver hair.

When to See a Doctor Gradual changes in vision as you age are normal, but a sudden change in your vision--no matter what your age--isn't, says Bruce Rosenthal, O.D., professor and chief of low vision services at the State University of New York College of Optometry in New York City. "Blurred vision can be a first sign of eye diseases such as glaucoma, macular degeneration or cataracts, which can seriously impair your vision." Other conditions that can cause cloudy vision include diabetes, pregnancy, side effects of medications, anemia, kidney disease and optic nerve disease. So it's important to see a doctor as soon as possible if there's any sudden blurriness in your near or distant vision.

Around age 40, you may find it's more difficult to focus on near objects, particularly printed words when you're reading. Doctors call this presbyopia.

But before you shell out the green stuff for special prescription glasses, these tips may help you fine-tune your focusing.

Do the fine print sprint. "Part of the problem of the aging eye is that the lens becomes less flexible," says Bruce Rosenthal, O.D., professor and chief of low vision services at the State University of New York College of Optometry in New York City. "If you exercise the muscles that control the shape of the lens, it may be possible to delay near-point fuzziness to some degree."

One exercise involves cutting headlines of decreasing size out of the newspaper and affixing each one to a pencil. Then hold the largest headline about a foot away from your face. Gradually bring it in toward your nose, trying to keep the print in focus. Move the headline back out again. Repeat with the next smaller headline, then the rest, until you have looked at all the headlines.

"With practice, you may be able to read even the tiniest labels on medicine bottle with no difficulty," says Dr. Rosenthal.

Follow the bouncing thumb. To keep your eye muscles fully flexed, hold out your thumb at arm's length. Move it in circles, then in figure eights, closer and farther away. Follow it with your eyes. This helps keep the fine motor system of your eyes in working order, says Dr. Rosenthal,

Switch frequently from near to far. If you keep your eyes fixed for long periods on a computer screen, for example, your eye muscles can temporarily become stuck. This slows focusing when you try to zoom from near to far and back again, says Dr. Rosenthal. To keep your eye muscles loose, look up every ten minutes and focus on a poster located about eight feet away. Then look back at the words on the computer screen. Shift your focus back and forth repeatedly for 30 seconds.

Invest in brighter bulbs. As your eyes age, you may begin to need more light for everyday activities. In fact, by age 60, you could need six times as much light as you did at age 20 to perform the same tasks, according to Dr. Rosenthal. "If you have better lighting, the pupils become smaller, and the amount of blur you experience may be less," says James Sheedy, O.D., Ph.D., associate clinical professor at the University of California, Berkeley, School of Optometry. You may find that high-wattage incandescent bulbs will help you see better than harsh fluorescent lights.

How to Adjust to Bifocals If you have trouble with both near and distant vision, you may eventually end up with bifocals. But getting used to bifocals can be a lot like stumbling through a fun house filled with wavy mirrors. Be patient, says Joseph P. Shovlin, O.D., an optometrist at the Northeastern Eye Institute, with headquarters in Scranton, Pennsylvania, and chairman of the Contact Lens Section of the American Optometric Association. "It can take from a few days to several weeks to get used to multifocal lenses." Be prepared for possible return visits to the optometrist for adjustments, since a dual-prescription lens often requires more precise measurements than a single-vision lens. Here are tips to focus on. Wear the glasses all day for the first week or two until you're accustomed to them, even though you may not need them for all tasks. Avoid looking at your feet when walking. Hold reading material closer to your body and lower your eyes, not your head, so that you are reading out of the lowest part of the lens. Fold the newspaper in half or quarters and move it, rather than your head, to read comfortably.

Check out off-the-rack reading glasses. All you may need to read and see close up are simple magnifiers, says Richard P. Mills, M.D., professor of ophthalmology at the University of Washington School of Medicine in Seattle. "The drugstore demi-glasses that come in about ten different powers are medically acceptable," says Dr. Mills. "Just make sure they have no optical distortion."

To find out, hold the glasses at arm's length, then look through them as you move them in a circular motion. If there's some "swim," or distortion, get another pair. If you find that these reading glasses give you a headache or tired eyes, however, you're better off with prescription glasses.