Overview
Around 70 percent of the general population uses glasses or contact lenses to improve their vision. As one gets older, it is both hard to focus on objects which are either too close or too distant. For most people this happens around the age of 40 while in others at a later age. You can recognize those which are in need to correct their vision on occasions where they have to pull away the newspaper to their full extent of their arms.
Other symptoms are that reading material, which is close to starting to be blurred, and in most cases, this becomes more significant at night (just ask yourself if you have stopped reading your favorite literature…). In addition, frequent headaches occur accompanies by eye pain and fatigue.
This is a natural and progressive process, which occurs over the years and the general recommendation for that is to meet an optometrist eye test to fit you with either eyeglasses or contact lens. As prices of these items can sum up to hundreds of dollars, you might want to opt for a cheap solution. The traditional solution was to buy several contact lenses pair, for short and long distance, and replace them. However, this is a non-convenient procedure, and somewhat not cost effective. Therefore, the multi-focal contact lenses were introduced.
Multi-focal technology
Multi-focal lenses, which exist for some time in the market, have undergone significant improvement over the recent years, with state-of-the-art materials; enable a higher transfer of oxygen, and lower deposit accumulation, all with a cheaper cost.
Till not so many years ago, the only cost effective option was to use two different contact lenses. The dominant eye have use a lens optimize to see distant objects while the other eye was using a closer focal length lens. The average focal length was something in between. This method was known as mono-vision, and it was used with all types of contact lenses, expensive and cheap ones. The main drawback of this solution is the loss of depth perception.
Multi-focal contact lenses
The more modern option is to use special contact lenses, which are multi focal lenses. The lens consists of several optical rings, each with a different focus (or focal length). The central portion of the lens is adjusted to read, while the external ring is for viewing distant objects. The adoption rate and ease of use for this technique is quite high as it is a natural process and does not require any adjustment from the user side.
Cheap multi focal lenses come with many shapes and sizes, and can be “tailored” by the local optician. The eyesight correction is quite high and usually eliminates the need to purchase additional pair of lenses. In any case, as competition is quite fierce, do not hesitate to negotiate on prices, and shop for the most attractive option.