21–30 of 89 posts
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 had to wear contact lenses since junior high because my eyes were so warped that glasses couldn't correct my vision. This was fine but when I hit fifty I started wondering what I'm going to do when I'm really old - I couldn't see myself caring for my scleral lenses at 80 or whatever.
My eyes started to develop cataracts at 50. I was lucky and found a great eye surgeon who implanted custom toric lenses. I can now see well enough that I can legally drive a car without lenses. I can read books at night on my phone without lenses. I start my day in the morning on the computer programming without lenses but in the afternoon I usually put on reading glasses and continue...
Anyway, I'm so much better off after my cataract surgery than I was before. However I have relatives that are worse off after. I think part of it is my warped eye - I can focus different distances because of it. But also I had a great ophthalmologist which sounds like the major difference.
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…
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…
Progressives here. The very bottom irritates me to no end during the day. If I drive in the morning or walk around I feel absolutely horrible. Like I'm drunk.
Sure, if I need to read something really really close on my phone in the evening, when the eyes have gone tired it's kinda OK. I do need to focus on the bottom of the glasses.
But I still (after months) usually just look straight ahead (sometimes that "mid section" is not right for what I'm looking at) or I need to intentionally look down, in order to actually look through the top of my glasses.
I think the progressives are worse than getting two pairs, but I can't tell for sure yet, since this is the first time for me and I believed the optometrist who recommended progressives (from own experience, being a little older than myself).
I will have to try the other way soon I guess.
Like right now, evening, I can't read this screen on the bottom of the glasses. The laptop is too far away. To look through the top, I have to look down. Like "double chin territory".
At normal cell phone distance, I can't use the bottom part. It's sorta blurry. I need to try and find the middle. Which is the smallest sections (I don't have huge glasses. Maybe an inch top to bottom, which all the progression has to fit into.
For most people it becomes inflexible first, and you might have trouble squeezing the lens and it limits your range of focus. This is when most people need reading glasses.
I had problems with cataracts, when the lens further gets cloudy.
Most people eventually get cataracts due to age, but some conditions can speed up the process and you get them earlier.
When I had the problem, I had trouble with glare while driving, and seeing a bright computer screen was a chore.
I switched to dark mode for reading and computer use and it really helped. It was such a relief.
For driving, the glare was like shining headlights on a dirty windshield. Some situations like bright tuner headlights on a rainy night were confusing and required extra care. It helped to use polarized driving glasses, but only a bit.
When this stuff gets to be too much, people get cataract surgery to replace the lens. This operation is pretty well sorted, it takes a few minutes to replace the lens, and most people really enjoy the results.
for me, I chose single-vision lenses. I got very very good 20/20 vision at a distance and used reading glasses for near vision. There are lots of types of reading glasses available and I have lenses for my computer. I can use very small fonts, and dark mode is completely optional.
Funny, but driving at night is a big change. I can see clearly and headlights have switched the type of glare. I can now focus on bright headlights and now the problem is all that light focuses perfectly on probably one cell on my retina and is almost painfully bright.
(there are two kinds of glare - disability glare the kind I used to have, and now discomfort glare with a reaction to the absolute brightness)
oh, and now that I focus at infinity, getting reading glasses is easy. the formula for it is:
1 / distance-in-meters = +x.xx diopters.
So to read your phone at .5 meters, use 1/.5 = +2.00 diopter reading glasses.
My computer screen works out to +1.25 diopter.
Really close project stuff is +3.0 or more
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cataract
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 particu…
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)…
Back when I attempted to be an edgy college guy, I carried my Gentoo with green foreground on a black background. EVERYWHERE. My pcmanfm (yes, I was one of those) looked glorious in true matrix style (and I did have a matrix screensaver). I did it because it was "cool", not because I felt that dark mode was better.
Then when I changed to MacOS, since there wasn't native dark mode, I don't think I ever _thought_ of even changing it. Things just looked great and I had no complaints.
And, as I've aged, dark mode started to actually hurt my eyes.
There's a special kind of dark mode which I can never put my finger on and literally makes my head hurt. I can feel my light adjusting itself to the change and the blurriness settling in. Every letter seems to transfer some of its weight onto neighboring letters, even those in a previous paragraph with quite a large vertical gap! I don't see the letters overlap but it's like my mind is telling me that they ARE overlapping. It's bizarre but it's the best description I can give: my brain is convinced they overlap, even though my eyes disagree.
I can never focus on those websites and have to quit immediately. Usually pitch black is bad, but I've seen some websites make it work. I once read it has to do with astigmatism and ever since then I've paroted that, but I have friends with astigmatism who scoff at my white/light mode.
Examples (most of them from random googling):
- This is terrible. The green makes my head hurt and it's very hard to focus on it. https://anilkody.framer.website/?ref=darkmodedesign
- This is ok. https://www.danielsantos.co/
- Our company's website is fine https://www.cron.studio/
- Also ok https://superset.sh/
- Unbearable: https://www.omnius.so/web-development
I'm a guy who loves to have the maximum brightness, and incredibly bright lights. I'm not kidding: if I work against a black wall I'll go crazy. Back at my parent's place I pointed 4 different strong ceiling lights at the place where I used to have the computer to make sure it was LIT.
It sort of sucks because there's an increasing amount of dark-mode only websites and I've had to occasionally apply custom styles to them just to browse...
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…
They are called progressives (or multi-focal – depending on whom you speak with).
Progressives come in a few «ranges»: near-range, mid-range and all-purpose. There are also «premium» options available, although I am not entirely sure how much different they actually are.
I have found that having two separate pairs of progressives (near-range for reading, laptop use and all-purpose for everything else) works the best. All of them can also be had as the transition variety and with different tint colours, thus obviating the need for a separate pair of shades.
In fact, when I first tried the near-range progressives some 5 years ago, it was an eye-opener in the almost literal sense of the word – the laptop screen flattened and became bigger despite obviously not changing its physical size. It was something that I had struggled with for a long time before the progressives entered mainstream. At high prescription numbers, the lenses for myopia start distorting the true shape of objects which creates mild to substantial visual discomfort, and near-range progressives fix that.
Another source of discomfort might be the suboptimal «Add» number on the script for progressives. This can be fixed by going to an optometrist clinic rather that a street optometrist (or find a reputable and good one first). If the «Add» is too small, the progressives will make little difference compared to conventional lenses, and, if it is too big, they will make it difficult to see in the distance.
Based on own subjective experience, I can't recommend the progressives enough, although a little bit of fine-tuning might be required (none in my case).
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…
Oh so much. Progressives here. The very bottom irritates me to no end during the day. If I drive in the morning or walk around I feel absolutely horrible. Like I'm drunk. Sure, if I need to read something really really close on my phone in the evening, when the eyes have gone tired it's kinda OK. I do need to focus on the bottom of the glasses. But I still (after months) usually just look straight ahead (sometimes th…
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…