What are Bifocals?

Myopia and hypermetropia are common well known eyesight problems. Generally, it is believed that people will have either of these problems. Prescription glasses were worn to correct these problems. Lenses will either be thick in the middle or at the edges to correct far or near sightedness. For those people who have both near and far sightedness, single vision lenses are not enough. They need lenses that provide correct vision of objects located both near and far. Bifocal eyeglasses are used in such cases.

Bifocal eyeglasses have two pairs of lenses one for correcting myopia and the other for correcting hypermetropia. Bifocal glasses have four lenses to provide correct vision for the wearer.

People will be wearing single vision glasses to correct either near or far sightedness. They will then switch over to bifocal glasses after some years when the necessity arises. People will wear bifocal lenses only when they suffer from the problem of both near and far sightedness. It is commonly believed that only after aging we should move to bifocal glasses. But this is not true. Even before realizing the problem, people will have combinational eyesight problem. If you wear bifocals at the initial stage, you can greatly reduce the strain on the eyes.

Different bifocal glasses are available and you should consult your optometrist to decide on what you want. In the previous decades, bifocal lenses led to lines in the viewing objects. This problem was eliminated with the new technology. Progressive lenses are now used by many people which gives corrected clear vision without any lines irrespective what and where the object is.

Until a few years bifocal lenses were designed such that the top portion of the lens aided in seeing distant objects and the lower portion of the lens aided in seeing closer objects. This was designed keeping in mind the fact that close objects are looked essentially for reading and writing purposes which need your heads put down. This design failed when more and more people started using computers for their work. The monitor of the computer is directly infront of the face and people wearing bifocal lenses started feeling uncomfortable. Then new bifocal lenses are designed such that they provide correct vision at different powers depending on where one looks through the lens.

People’s experience states that contact lenses are much better than bifocal glasses. These contact lenses gave very clear vision and were very comfortable when looking at the computer. People never needed to adjust the angle of their heads for a clear vision. Contact lenses provided better peripheral vision.

We cannot generalize that contact lenses clear all eyesight problems. You have to consult your optometrist whether you need bifocal glasses or contact lenses. The visual acuity of all persons will be changing with years. You have to check up your eyes atleast once in two years and wear the correct prescription glasses to maintain good eyes health.