I never needed reading glasses when I was young. I grew up nearsighted, and simply took off my glasses to read, and didn't, quite, get ink on my nose in the process (though I read with the left eye for the left page of the book, and the right eye for the right page, and never saw the rest of the world while reading). I remember briefly having bifocals as a child, but I kept taking off my glasses to read anyway, as reading is done lying on my back, holding the book over my face, and the bifocal part wasn't in the right spot for that, and the next pair of glasses were normal ones.
I switched to contacts after I got active in the SCA, in late high school, and they worked fine for both reading and distance, and all was good for some years. After dad died, in 1998, I used my small inheritance to pay for LASIK surgery (and getting my tubes tied, but that isn't relevant to this comment) and had 15 glorious years without glasses or contacts.
Then I started having a very weird problem--needing to hold things *further* from my eyes to be able to read them. Now, 13 years later, and my arms are still convinced that a book should be held directly to my face, and my brain doesn't like the reality that it doesn't work to read like that.
Now I have progressive lenses, so I can see my sewing and embroidery projects, and see distances, and they are good. They work to drive in, they work to see people I am having conversations with, they work for crafts. It is possible to find a position that works for reading. They do NOT work to see the screw on the underside of a cabinet over my head that I wish to tighten or remove. However, taking the glasses off, turning them upside down, and putting them back makes the screw kinda visible, and it isn't often that one needs to do this.
I remember hating the bifocals as a child, in part for that line, and the really abrupt difference between the two focal regions, and, it truly wasn't necessary, as nearsighted was, for me, kinda like having a magnifying glass always available. I love my current progressive lenses, except for those times when I want to read something both up and near, and I have to tilt my head so far that it hurts, to bring the letters into focus, or just remember to shift where the glasses sit on my nose.
I wish you luck in quickly working out what works for your eyes, and, if it becomes necessary to change out the bifocals for something else, I hope that your source for glasses has a reasonable "that didn't work, lets try something else without charging a fortune" policy.
no subject
I switched to contacts after I got active in the SCA, in late high school, and they worked fine for both reading and distance, and all was good for some years. After dad died, in 1998, I used my small inheritance to pay for LASIK surgery (and getting my tubes tied, but that isn't relevant to this comment) and had 15 glorious years without glasses or contacts.
Then I started having a very weird problem--needing to hold things *further* from my eyes to be able to read them. Now, 13 years later, and my arms are still convinced that a book should be held directly to my face, and my brain doesn't like the reality that it doesn't work to read like that.
Now I have progressive lenses, so I can see my sewing and embroidery projects, and see distances, and they are good. They work to drive in, they work to see people I am having conversations with, they work for crafts. It is possible to find a position that works for reading. They do NOT work to see the screw on the underside of a cabinet over my head that I wish to tighten or remove. However, taking the glasses off, turning them upside down, and putting them back makes the screw kinda visible, and it isn't often that one needs to do this.
I remember hating the bifocals as a child, in part for that line, and the really abrupt difference between the two focal regions, and, it truly wasn't necessary, as nearsighted was, for me, kinda like having a magnifying glass always available. I love my current progressive lenses, except for those times when I want to read something both up and near, and I have to tilt my head so far that it hurts, to bring the letters into focus, or just remember to shift where the glasses sit on my nose.
I wish you luck in quickly working out what works for your eyes, and, if it becomes necessary to change out the bifocals for something else, I hope that your source for glasses has a reasonable "that didn't work, lets try something else without charging a fortune" policy.