What Are Bifocal Contact Lenses?

As you age, your vision starts to diminish because your eyes actually become less flexible. This condition called presbyopia happens to pretty much everyone once they start to hit 40 and it causes you to not be able to see objects close up as well as you used to. Luckily, bifocal contact lenses can help you get back your eyesight the way it used to be.

But until very recently, contacts couldn’t work this way and your only choice was either not to be able to see up close or to wear bifocal eyeglasses. These early bifocals were rather unsightly with a huge line in the middle or a little square cut out for the different prescriptions. People that do need glasses to see far away would where those little half glasses perched on their nose in order to read. Today’s bifocal eyeglasses are seamless with no lines, but still nothing beats contact lenses.

Although rather new, bifocal contact lenses are becoming more and more popular each year particularly with older people these days who are more healthy and trying to look younger to match the vibrant way they feel. Just like a bifocal eyeglasses, the bifocal lens contains two prescriptions. If you have a problem seeing distance one prescription will correct that and the other will enhance your close-up vision.

There are three ways a bifocal lens can be made. One way is that both prescriptions can be centered at the cornea so that they are within the boundaries of the pupil itself. With this type of manufacture the eyes learn to adjust to the prescription necessary at the moment. This particular method is called simultaneous placement.

Another method called translating placement is when the bottom of the lens has a prescription for close vision and the top for distance. Another way to make them is to place the prescriptions in concentric circles – one prescription in the inner circle and the other in the outer circle.

These days you can easily get bifocal contact lenses because most major contact lens manufacturers make at least one kind. They are just as effective as eyeglasses and come in extended wear, disposable and daily wear styles. One thing to watch out for, though, is that if you’re not used to wearing bifocals you will need some time to get used to them. They can really make you dizzy or feel off balanced until your eyes get used to switching between the two different prescriptions. So if you do get bifocal contact lenses, it’s a good idea to keep your old prescription for a while so that you can switch between the two until you are used to these new lenses.

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