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Trading reading glasses for irritated eyes

3 min read

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Well, it finally happened. For decades, I thanked my lucky stars that I had 20/20 vision and didn’t have to endure the same torture as my friends and family did wearing contacts lenses or any kind of glasses. Father time finally caught up with me a few years ago when middle age presbyopia set in slowly. I reluctantly and begrudgingly bought a pair of reading glasses at the drug store and kept them in my purse mainly to help me read menus in low-lit restaurants.

Over time, I found myself reaching for my readers more and more often when reading the newspaper, labels at the grocery store and when writing on the computer. One pair of readers multiplied into many with a pair stashed in the car, the nightstand, my desk and now in just about every room in the house. I even bought a cute little necklace that is actually a cleverly disguised, bejeweled pair of readers.

My last eye exam was four years ago, so I thought it was time to have a checkup and see just how bad my sight has gotten. The doctor told me I need “quite a bit more” correction than last time close up and even a tiny bit for seeing far away. I can still read tiny print all the way across a room but can’t read a menu in front of my face. My boyfriend’s vision is the opposite, so between the two of us we can read a menu and see the scores on the sports ticker on all of the TVs at sports bars during March Madness basketball.

I finally bit the bullet and decided to try out contact lenses for near vision with the slightest correction far away. It took a few tries to learn how to put in and remove them, but persistence paid off and I left them in the entire first day. It was nice to be able to once again see and read everything without reaching for readers all day. I took out the contacts once evening rolled around and my eyes felt a bit irritated. They were red and blotchy and that didn’t go away the entire second day. I skipped yesterday and vowed to try them again today to see how it goes.

Do I have to have red, irritated, watery eyes every day after I wear contacts? I’m hoping my eyes will eventually adjust to having a foreign body inserted on top of them but the whole thing just seems unnatural. I’ll give it the old college try again over the next week then decide whether to actually order a box of the lenses. I guess my choices are blurred vision, glasses that leave marks on my nose and squeeze my head after a while or contact lenses that leave me looking like I have pink eye. What choices!

Kristin Emery can be reached at kristinemery1@yahoo.com.

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