Are Bifocals Easy to Get Used to

You may have noticed as you get older that your eyes have trouble focusing on nearby objects. As you age, the lens inside your eye becomes less flexible, a condition called presbyopia (similar to farsightedness, but not exactly the same thing). Unfortunately, it is a normal part of aging. There's no cure for it, but corrective glasses or contacts can make reading, sewing and other activities easier. Bifocal glasses, bifocal contacts, and progressive lenses, which have multiple, blended powers of vision correction, can help, but getting used to wearing them can be a challenge. Here are some tips to help your eyes adapt to wearing bifocals and progressives.

Wear your bifocals all the time, at least for a while.

To adjust quickly to wearing bifocal glasses or contacts, you'll need to wear them all the time. This includes first thing in the morning, and you can wear bifocal sunglasses if you're outdoors. If you'd rather adjust slowly, especially if you've never worn any kind of corrective lens before, just wear them when you need them. But keep in mind it will take much longer for your eyes to adapt. If you wear them continually, without switching back to old glasses at any time, you'll likely adjust to wearing your bifocals within a week or two.
Don't look down through your bifocals while you walk.

Looking through the bottom part of your bifocal glasses while you walk may make your feet look out of focus. You could find that walking down stairs is particularly difficult, because the lower part of your bifocals makes everything appear larger and it may look like the stairs are in a different place than where they actually are. If you really need to look down while you walk, remember to tilt your head down and look over the top of the bifocal portion of your glasses.
You may need to change the way you read when using your bifocals.

Hold your book or other reading material below your face and about 16 to 18 inches away from your eyes. Look through the bottom—magnified—portion of your bifocal (or progressive) glasses as you read rather than the top portion of the glasses. And you'll have to train yourself not to make big movements with your head while you read. Instead, move the material you're reading to see clearly.
Make sure your bifocal or progressive lenses fit your face properly.

Without a proper fit, you'll have a more difficult time adapting to your new progressive or bifocal glasses. People who have progressive lenses may have a more difficult time adjusting because the lenses blend multiple powers of magnification in the same pair of glasses. Choose an eye doctor who has the experience to ensure you buy glasses that fit properly, which includes the size and shape of your face along with the frame size. The height of the lenses is particularly important for accommodating progressive lenses. If the bifocals don't fit right in the optical shop you won't see any better after you go home! If the glasses are painful in any way, have your doctor adjust them.
You can choose bifocal contacts as an alternative to glasses.
If you'd rather wear contacts, you're in luck. Bifocal contacts are available, and you can also get trifocal or progressive lenses. You'll have several options for multifocal contacts.

Options include:
- Near and distance prescriptions at the center of the contact
- Near prescription at the center of the contact while the distance prescription is on the outer edge (or vice versa)
- Near prescription at the bottom of the contact and the one for distance at the top (or vice versa)
- Near prescription contact in one eye and the distance prescription contact in the other
Make sure you choose the type of contact lens that's most appropriate for your eyes. For example, people with dry eyes may not have success with one correction at the top of the contacts and the other correction at the bottom. That type of lens needs to move easily over your eye to re-center itself after every blink. If you have dry eyes, recentration is much more difficult and objects will be blurry because your eye is not getting the proper correction it needs. Your doctor can help you decide which option is best for you.