As the eye begins straining to focus up-close, you might start to notice the effects of presbyopia in some everyday activities involving reading, such as books, magazines, phone text, food labels, etc. This blurry vision will cause you to move further away, often as far as your arm can stretch, where things will become much clearer.

You also might notice blurry vision in physical activities too, such as painting your fingernails, applying makeup or driving. We tend to brush this off as a part of getting older and don’t do anything about it, but multifocal lenses can massively improve our quality of life and vision.

Presbyopia can also cause headaches, eye strain and visual fatigue that could also affect the way your eyes feel generally. It might make looking at objects at any distance less comfortable and more tiring. Poor lighting plays a big part in relation to the effects of presbyopia whereas it becomes less noticeable in sunlight or bright lights when the pupil naturally becomes smaller.

Blurry vision will be perceived more prominently in low, naturally-lit indoor environments. It’s important to note that presbyopia doesn’t just affect people who wear contact lenses or glasses; presbyopes may never have experienced eye strain, or an eye condition, before now. Most people only tend to take action on the condition when symptoms start to worsen, but eye care practitioners say the best way to go about treating presbyopia is by moving quickly. As soon as you experience a sign, book an eye test to find out what your correction options are.

What is Presbyopia?