I'm nearly 49 now. Presbyopia (the loss of ability to close-focus) came on strongly for me at about 46. It was almost like an overnight change. I've also lost significant acuity in low light, but that seemed to come on more slowly.
I got my first bifocals last year. I got the "no line" variety and, so far, I hate them. The focal distances I need for reading, viewing my phone, and other close work are at the absolute bottom of the lens. Likewise, I find the top of bifocal area of the lens interfering with straight-ahead vision sometimes, too.
I'd like to try a set of bifocals with traditional discrete lenses to see if that improves my experience. I'd be curious to hear others' experiences.
re: light - I can definitely tell I have better acuity in bright settings when my irises are "stopped down" to a small pupil. I'm glad of my experience shooting manual focus / aperture cameras because it gives me a good intuition for what the optical instruments in my head are doing.
> Instead of a single row of data on a spreadsheet, I saw two, one below the other
I have keratoconus, where the cornea loses its shape and creates multiple focal points. I have several focal points in each eye.
It got so bad I couldn't read. So many copies of every letter that text looked like nests of spiders. Not an exaggeration, you could give me a page and a week and I wouldn't be able to decode it.
I also got headaches. Imagine trying to focus when all that does is vary which points in one eye match the other eye. It took a long time for my brain to stop trying.
If I look at a little "power dot" on some device across a pitch-black room, I can clearly see all the focal points, at random distances from a presumed center and each other. And a web of smeared focal lines connecting them.
It sounds cool, but you really don't want a focal web!
Fortunately, surgery involving soaking my cornea with a strengthening substance, and applying lasers to set it, improved my left eye considerably. And then, for unknown reasons, both eyes have improved spontaneously since then.
I feel very lucky to be able to read effortlessly, or at all, again.
For some reason, I sometimes have bad days and see mildly offset multiples. But mostly, the focal points are so closely clustered I don't notice them. Unless I try and read tiny tiny pill-cannister writing.
Now about my damn myopic lenses, ...
For most of my life I had noticeably better than 20/20 vision.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keratoconus
(I am happy to say, my eyes never looked anything like that picture. They didn't have any visible misshaping. I think my corneas had subtle soft rippling.)
Fellow keratoconus sufferer here. Glad to hear about your successful treatment and spontaneous improvement. I definitely notice day-to-day differences in my acuity but nothing miraculous like that. Hope it remains good for you.
I "missed" corneal collagen crosslinking w/ riboflavin (the treatment I assume you're eluding in your paragraph re: soaking your cornea and applying lasers). When I was initially diagnosed the treatment was in trials outside the US. By the time it was approved in the US my corneal specialist said I'd "stabilized" and was likely to see no benefit for the procedure, only risk. My prescription has been reasonably stable for the last 10 years (at least as far as my astigmatism and keratoconus goes). Now I'm just descending into presbyopia hell.
Out of curiosity, do you have a history of allergies with ocular symptoms (itching, swelling)?
Interesting. I've actually been making more use of light mode lately, even for code. Granted, I'm not that old yet but I'm almost 40, and I have astigmatism so dark mode was already difficult to read, but now I feel like its gotten much worse for me.
I lament the lack of good light theme choices though because the majority use dark mode, and dark mode is increasingly becoming the default setting which I don't particularly like, but as long as there's a choice its fine.
I don't do much work on a screen in the dark anymore though to where dark mode would be necessary. My home office is surrounded by big windows with a ton of natural light.
This. I hate dark mode because it’s difficult to read for me (myopia due to age) - the glowing letters on dark background get much blurrier for some reason.
Most people who like dark mode use it so they can be in a dimly lit room and not have the display blast their eyes with light but I’ve found that under low ambient light my vision is far blurrier - a well lit room complemented by light mode (ie natural, default) display is the easiest to read.
Light mode has its place! I think I am far happier reading light mode text, but when I code I want dark mode. Dark for _everything_ is sometimes overwhelming, it always seems like there are too many things to look at.
I don’t know who on Hackernews first mentioned these red light glasses but bought them for my mom in the hopes it could alleviate some vision problems she was having. After reading the precautions and fine print she was scared to try them, so I figured, why not see if there’s a difference for me. I don’t know how to describe it other than my eyes feel well rested when I use these consistently. I can see better in the dark and depth perception is just slightly better. I’ll use these puppies forever.
My eye sight got MUCH worse after a covid infection. I was 20/20 or better before covid, now everything is blurry outside of a very narrow distance range, and white anything can hurt. Granted I'm over 50, so I was expecting my eyes to go bad at some point.
May be a timing coincidence - I'm in my mid 40s and my eyes are changing rapidly and getting much less flexible in terms of range. I'm switching between three different pairs of glasses for different distances, and need new prescriptions every year.
The eyes connect to the back of the brain and just above the evolutionary older cortext. When those signals start failing, there's some deeper change going on.
I’ve started going down a similar path for scent and ADHD. I have a horrible sense of smell and just learned that it might correlate with symptoms of ADHD.
I'm nearly 49 now. Presbyopia (the loss of ability to close-focus) came on strongly for me at about 46. It was almost like an overnight change. I've also lost significant acuity in low light, but that seemed to come on more slowly.
I got my first bifocals last year. I got the "no line" variety and, so far, I hate them. The focal distances I need for reading, viewing my phone, and other close work are at the absolute bottom of the lens. Likewise, I find the top of bifocal area of the lens interfering with straight-ahead vision sometimes, too.
I'd like to try a set of bifocals with traditional discrete lenses to see if that improves my experience. I'd be curious to hear others' experiences.
re: light - I can definitely tell I have better acuity in bright settings when my irises are "stopped down" to a small pupil. I'm glad of my experience shooting manual focus / aperture cameras because it gives me a good intuition for what the optical instruments in my head are doing.
> Instead of a single row of data on a spreadsheet, I saw two, one below the other
I have keratoconus, where the cornea loses its shape and creates multiple focal points. I have several focal points in each eye.
It got so bad I couldn't read. So many copies of every letter that text looked like nests of spiders. Not an exaggeration, you could give me a page and a week and I wouldn't be able to decode it.
I also got headaches. Imagine trying to focus when all that does is vary which points in one eye match the other eye. It took a long time for my brain to stop trying.
If I look at a little "power dot" on some device across a pitch-black room, I can clearly see all the focal points, at random distances from a presumed center and each other. And a web of smeared focal lines connecting them.
It sounds cool, but you really don't want a focal web!
Fortunately, surgery involving soaking my cornea with a strengthening substance, and applying lasers to set it, improved my left eye considerably. And then, for unknown reasons, both eyes have improved spontaneously since then.
I feel very lucky to be able to read effortlessly, or at all, again.
For some reason, I sometimes have bad days and see mildly offset multiples. But mostly, the focal points are so closely clustered I don't notice them. Unless I try and read tiny tiny pill-cannister writing.
Now about my damn myopic lenses, ...
For most of my life I had noticeably better than 20/20 vision.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keratoconus (I am happy to say, my eyes never looked anything like that picture. They didn't have any visible misshaping. I think my corneas had subtle soft rippling.)
Fellow keratoconus sufferer here. Glad to hear about your successful treatment and spontaneous improvement. I definitely notice day-to-day differences in my acuity but nothing miraculous like that. Hope it remains good for you.
I "missed" corneal collagen crosslinking w/ riboflavin (the treatment I assume you're eluding in your paragraph re: soaking your cornea and applying lasers). When I was initially diagnosed the treatment was in trials outside the US. By the time it was approved in the US my corneal specialist said I'd "stabilized" and was likely to see no benefit for the procedure, only risk. My prescription has been reasonably stable for the last 10 years (at least as far as my astigmatism and keratoconus goes). Now I'm just descending into presbyopia hell.
Out of curiosity, do you have a history of allergies with ocular symptoms (itching, swelling)?
Interesting. I've actually been making more use of light mode lately, even for code. Granted, I'm not that old yet but I'm almost 40, and I have astigmatism so dark mode was already difficult to read, but now I feel like its gotten much worse for me.
I lament the lack of good light theme choices though because the majority use dark mode, and dark mode is increasingly becoming the default setting which I don't particularly like, but as long as there's a choice its fine.
I don't do much work on a screen in the dark anymore though to where dark mode would be necessary. My home office is surrounded by big windows with a ton of natural light.
I don’t know how anyone with a glossy display can work on a dark theme.
I see my whole room unless it is pitch black inside.
This. I hate dark mode because it’s difficult to read for me (myopia due to age) - the glowing letters on dark background get much blurrier for some reason.
Most people who like dark mode use it so they can be in a dimly lit room and not have the display blast their eyes with light but I’ve found that under low ambient light my vision is far blurrier - a well lit room complemented by light mode (ie natural, default) display is the easiest to read.
Light mode has its place! I think I am far happier reading light mode text, but when I code I want dark mode. Dark for _everything_ is sometimes overwhelming, it always seems like there are too many things to look at.
I’ve had surprisingly positive results with these red light glasses: https://www.eye-power.co.uk/product/eyepower-red/
I don’t know who on Hackernews first mentioned these red light glasses but bought them for my mom in the hopes it could alleviate some vision problems she was having. After reading the precautions and fine print she was scared to try them, so I figured, why not see if there’s a difference for me. I don’t know how to describe it other than my eyes feel well rested when I use these consistently. I can see better in the dark and depth perception is just slightly better. I’ll use these puppies forever.
PSA: if you have floaters, try VitroCap for at least 6 months. It doesn’t help everyone, but makes life much easier for some like my mother
If I remember correctly, it contains some stuff from ordinary grape seeds that helps to orient back the fibers in a vitreous body.
Hence the at least 6 months to understand whether it works or not — new tissue takes time.
My eye sight got MUCH worse after a covid infection. I was 20/20 or better before covid, now everything is blurry outside of a very narrow distance range, and white anything can hurt. Granted I'm over 50, so I was expecting my eyes to go bad at some point.
May be a timing coincidence - I'm in my mid 40s and my eyes are changing rapidly and getting much less flexible in terms of range. I'm switching between three different pairs of glasses for different distances, and need new prescriptions every year.
I think there may be even more issues with brain health and vision.
https://www.nccdp.org/the-connection-between-dementia-and-vi...
The eyes connect to the back of the brain and just above the evolutionary older cortext. When those signals start failing, there's some deeper change going on.
I’ve started going down a similar path for scent and ADHD. I have a horrible sense of smell and just learned that it might correlate with symptoms of ADHD.