I’ve been wearing glasses since I was 11 years old, and contact lenses since I was 13. I never had problems with contact lenses and find them quite comfortable; I much prefer them to glasses and only wear glasses at night before going to bed.
I am nearsighted and my vision has been steady at between -4.00 to -5.00 with the left eye being slightly worse for the past twenty years or so. But this year, I thought my vision must have gotten worse because I was having trouble reading certain things, especially when trying to see small writing or detailed objects.
When I saw my eye doctor, I brought up these concerns and after the examination, she told me that my deteriorating vision was a result of aging, and if I had perfect vision before, I would need reading glasses now (to correct farsighted vision). But because I already need glasses, I would now need progressive lenses, where the top portion of the lenses are for vision correction, the bottom is for reading, and the middle for in-between.
My contact lenses were another matter. Because I now needed prescriptions to correct both nearsightedness and farsightedness, I had two options available to me: monovision contacts, and multifocal contacts.
Monovision contacts work by using one eye for close vision and the other for distances, with separate prescriptions for each eye. (Usually, the non-dominant eye is used for close vision.) Because my left eye is my non-dominant eye and the prescription for that eye is -5.00, the monovision-corrected prescription for that eye is now -4.00 since I need a +1.00 correction.
Multifocal contacts work like progressive lenses in that they contain two different prescriptions in one lens, with different “zones” for near and far vision. Multifocal contact lenses need to be specially ordered and are usually more expensive than regular contact lenses.
Now, I had been using the same brand of contact lenses for years and I love them, both for comfort and design. They are the Acuvue Define 1 day disposable lenses and they are colored lenses with a slight enlarging effect. My eye doctor knows I’m devoted to these lenses and so suggested monovision for me, since I wouldn’t be able to keep using the same contacts if I were to go the multifocal route.
The Acuvue Define lenses come in a variety of styles, and I use the “Accent” style which adds a thick black limbal ring to your eyes. On my dark brown eyes, they are hardly visible.
As for the enlarging effect, it is similar to circle lenses that there is some, but it is very slight. I have small irises so the difference is more prominent on me, but no one has ever noticed that I wear colored contacts. If anything, these contacts just give me a more bright and alert look to the eyes with an extra sparkle. My before-and-after is very similar to the photos below:
My vision insurance (which covers either contacts or glasses, not both) usually only covers about a 3 months supply of the Acuvue Define lenses. But in the past year, Acuvue doubled the price of these lenses so I only got a month’s supply covered. Luckily, I’ve been ordering the rest of my yearly supply from a Korean contact lens website. Compared to almost $60 for a box of 30 contacts here in the U.S., K-Lenspop carries a box of 90 contacts for $91, and if your order is over $110 (which it almost always is because I buy 2 boxes at a time), you automatically get upgraded to express international shipping for free. I have been ordering my contacts from this website for years and I always receive my contacts 5-7 days after ordering them. (And they take care of all the import/tariff charges.) They carry a wide variety of contacts, not just colored lenses, so if order contact lenses online, I suggest you check them out.
My eye doctor gave me a week’s supply of regular disposable lenses with the new monovision prescriptions to try out before committing to them. And I must admit that it took some time to get used to them. In fact, I think it took about a full month before I was able to see both far and near distances clearly with my monovision contacts, and mid-distance (like my laptop screen) still gets a bit blurry when I’m tired.
So along with gray hairs and an expanding waistline, my eyes have also become a victim of aging. Who knew that you could be both nearsighted and farsighted at the same time?
