Bifocal Contact Lenses
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We were meant to see both near and far. But as we age past our 40s we find it harder and harder to focus on things close up. This condition called presbyopia is the stiffing of the lens in our eyes. The Muscles in the eyes distort the lens to focus close up but as we age the lens get stiffer making it hard to distort until eventually they don’t distort at all. Fortunately bifocal contact lenses can help correct what age has taken from us.
Until recently the only thing you could do was go out and buy some reading glasses and for people who were already wearing glasses to switch to bifocals or progressives. Except for the added expense of new glasses the change over was easy for the glasses wearer. Different story for the people who never wore them before. Misplacing them, breaking them, hurting their nose and ears are just some of the problems people have with wearing glasses only for close up seeing.
Seems like bifocal contacts were made for the non glasses crowd and are beginning to be more popular every year. They are even more popular with the contact wearers. They also were faced with having to buy glasses to read with. The choices were worse for them because they had to choose reading glasses for the contact lens and changing their own glasses.
  Like the lens in bifocal glasses, each bifocal contact lens actually has two different prescriptions. One of the prescriptions will be for distance vision, if it’s a problem, will be corrected. The second of the two prescriptions will help to see close up.
There are three ways that the two prescriptions can be used on a contact lens. One way is to have one lens the reading and the other the distance prescription, the eyes then learn to decide and adjust to the prescription that’s needed at the moment. That is known as simultaneous placement. These simultaneous bifocal contact lenses do fall short on distance clarity and are good close up.
Translating placement is almost the same as bifocal lenses in glasses - the top portion of the lens has the prescription for near vision and the bottom half has the prescription for distance. Translating bifocal contact lens gives you better distance clarity and are easier to adjust to.
Another option is the placement of the different prescriptions in concentric circles with one prescription situated in the outermost circle, and the other within the inner circle.
Bifocal contacts are available from all the major manufacturers of contact lens and now produce at least one of the three version. They are just as good at correcting presbyopia as reading or bifocal glasses, so its up to the wearer which is better is based on the individuals needs. In addition to the various prescription placement options, wearers can choose bifocal contact lenses in extended wear, daily wear and disposable styles.
Anyone new to contact lenses should give their eyes time to adjust to the different prescriptions. At first, your vision may make you dizzy and can be bothersome but it does go away. If not you might need to switch to a different type of prescription placement, but once the right one is found, you should be seeing like you used to.
