I’m pretty sure that my bifocals are trying to kill me. To give you a little background, I now have to have bifocal lenses in my glasses because I work too much on the computer and look at my iPhone too often (getting the “smartphone chins” to top it all off) and my eyes, which were a bit on the weak side anyway, have started to complain. I actually get an instant headache if I try to use my laptop without finding my glasses and sometimes my iPhone screen, viewed with naked ‘balls, makes me feel dizzy and physically sick.
(I just have to revisit that last sentence, because I’ve never actually seen eyeballs shortened to ‘balls before, but I quite like it. Especially coupled with the naked part. I mean, viewing the iPhone with naked balls is something quite different, it’s critical you use the appropriate apostrophe. But it’s obvious that I mean sans-spectacles – I’m not sitting there with my ‘nads out. I don’t even have balls.)
So anyway, my glasses are bifocals which basically means that they have a big area of normal lens, call it the “pedestrian” strength part, and then a section at the bottom of the lense that gives me what could only be described as superhuman vision. Looking through the lower portion of my glasses I can spy on small insects that are crawling around in the Australian outback, I can see individual DNA spirals in a petri dish, I can even – and this is the most startling ability of all – read the ingredients lists on beauty products. Which we all know are written by elves, for elves.
But there’s a downside to all of this superhuman vision business; if I’m wearing my bifocals I can’t actually move anywhere. To move in my glasses, whether it’s running for a bus (inadvisable) or boarding a plane (especially when ascending via the outside metal steps) is to risk life and limb. My bifocals, dear readers, are trying to kill me.
I’m ok to move in my glasses if I look straight ahead, my neck perfectly upright, as though I’ve had a broom handle inserted somewhere unfortunate; but if I look downwards then it’s as though I’ve been hurled into another dimension. The floors bend, the walls swell outwards as though they’re closing me in. Steps distort, ants the size of small dogs loom up at me, the numerals on discarded receipts imprint upon my mind as though I’ve become this mad, hyper-aware bionic genius.
And it’s impossible to move in my glasses and look only straight ahead – at some point one always has to look down! Naturally we look all over the place, unless we’re an android or wearing a neck brace – we look down at the ground to check that we’re not going to fly over the top of someone’s unattended luggage, we keep small dogs and kerbs and flower borders in our peripheral vision so that we don’t break our necks, all of the time seeing straight head of us so that we don’t collide into people and walls and cars.
Bifocals, the murdering bastards, throw you between two different worlds, two realities, suddenly chucking you from normal life into something resembling the abstract bit from The Matrix with not a second’s warning. Giving you such intense boosts to your vision that you feel physically and emotionally exhausted, so that you want nothing more than to sink to the ground and clutch your head in despair. Like a fledgling superhero not yet used to their newly-adopted superpowers.
“Nooooooo! I didn’t ask for this supersight! I’m seeing things I can never unsee! Why are you doooooooiiiinnnnggg this to meeeeeee?”
Bifocals mess up all of my normal-day activities. Descending the stairs becomes a mission that requires the utmost levels of concentration – I lurch from side to side as though I’m on a doomed cross-Atlantic cargo ship, I miss steps like I’ve drunk three pints of Scotch on an empty stomach.
Why not just take the glasses off? I hear you ask. For the love of God woman, it’s as easy as reaching up and plucking the blasted things from your face! Not so: it takes my eyes precisely three and a half minutes to readjust to their nakedness. A lot can happen in that time, when you’re standing their with impaired, confused vision, your ‘balls naked and vulnerable. (Those naked ‘balls again.)
Granted, if you’re in the countryside then not much will befall you in three and a half minutes, unless you’re standing in a cow field and they’ve just calved, or you’re in control of a tractor. But in the city, in certain parts of London for example, three and a half minutes is enough time to be stripped of every possession, as though you’ve been run over by a plague of locusts. It’s enough time for the whole thing to have been recorded on a disenchanted youth’s iPhone and uploaded to Youtube.
The mortification.
And I realise I’m personifying my glasses, here – that I’m writing this on the assumption that my bifocals have some sort of evil intent. They have. Don’t be fooled by those snazzy frames. Last night I took them off in the bathroom and woke up with them perched on my head, the nose-rests tangled in my hair so severely that I almost had to cut the blasted things out.
My bifocals are trying to kill me and they’re also trying to make me bald. Yet I can’t do without them – it’s an incredibly depressing sort of relationship. So if you see me stumbling and swaying about in the outside world please don’t laugh; it’s because my lenses are, at the same time, showing me both the things that are close to my face and the things that are approximately eight thousand miles in the distance. I’m both normal person and fortune teller.
Tell me: have you bifocals in your spectacles? Varifocals? Or is it just me with the eyes of a seventy year-old Tudor cross-stitch champion?
Am I suffering the same complaint as all you other bifocal users?
I feel wobbly, or a sort of swaying sensation when walking around, have difficulty focusing especially when looking down. My doctor thought I may have vertigo but that was not the case.
Now she is thinking of sending me for an MRI! Some days are worse than others.
When driving or sitting still I have don’t have the problem.
My new prescription has not improved things. How can I tell if it’s the glasses?
I am 50 years old, worn glasses since 18 months old, Progressive bifocals since age 17. I have tried prisms-can’t wear them. I am now experiencing EXACTLY what you are describing for the FIRST TIME. After 6 visits to the eye doctor for “adjustments” on the frames, they re-examined me and decided the prescription for the bifocal was too strong. I understand not being able to move your head or things are watery and swimming. Having to hold your head to a 90 degree angle when reading caused neck pain, let alone the headaches. It has taken 2 months, but this morning they ordered me a new set of lenses. I will stop short of saying it was as though I was looking through a fish bowl, but it was rough.
I have the same problem! I’m constantly switching glasses for reading and for distance. I absolutely HATE it. Glasses for reading are ok, but for the rest they are just in the way. This is why I’m considering multi focal lens surgery. Unfortunately it’s expensive, and I always have this nagging thought in my head – what if the surgery is not successful?!?
Ruth, might I recommend eye correcting surgery? I found a wonderful ophthalmologist who corrected my vision surgically and now I can see EVERYTHING, both close-up and far away. The only thing I need mild reading glasses for is reading something at arm’s’ length (looking at my computer screen). I feel like a new woman with my wonderful new vision!
Hi Mary
How are things going now? Who did your surgery?
Those glasses are so beaut!
Ruth, as always your commentary on bi-focals is hilarious. I think varifocals are what we call progressive lenses in the US. This is what my opthalmologist put me in. It took a few days to get used to but you transition with an intermediate lens between far and reading. I was told to put them on first thing in the morning so my eyes would get accustomed to the new view without my brain going from seeing normal to then having to adjust to the view with the glasses. It seemed to work. I struggled for a week trying to wear them, but when I put them on first thing in the morning I was on my way to being adjusted just that first day.
Good luck…..
Yes adjustments to progressives or bifocals take time. The stairs are the hardest to get used to. I commute by metro train and always walk up and down the escalators. My eyes are always on the steps – can’t take any distractions. It does get easier.
Why not try contact lenses instead Ruth? I wear multi-focal contact lenses and they are great, you don’t get any distortion with them and no odd feelings either. I am very, very short-sighted and they are available in my high prescription so should be available for you (I’m assuming you’re not badly short or long-sighted as you don’t wear glasses permanently). My lenses are dailies too, so I have a new pair every day – no faffing about with cleaning and sterlising!
Hi Ruth,
Sorry to hear your not getting on with your glasses. I’m an optician and would advice you to go back to your opticians if your not getting on with your lenses. There may be something wrong with the prescription or measurements.
Also I’m not sure what exact type of lens you have but I usually prescribe Zeiss digital lenses for people under 40 who are experiencing digital and close up strain for the first time. I use them myself and they took 1-2 days to get used to them but now are amazing. I probably wouldn’t go for the blue blocking lens for ones you wear on camera as the reflections will look awful.
https://www.zeiss.com/vision-care/int/eye-care-professionals/products/spectacle-lenses/digital-lenses.html
Unfortunately Specsavers do not sell this lenses so you would need to try and independent opticians, there are some fantastic ones down your neck of the woods.
Rachel
I started wearing progressive glasses some months ago. Apparently I do also have slightly aquinting eyes, so I also have something to correct this, called prism.
At first I wanted to go back immediately and change the glasses into the above mentioned digital lenses (as I did pick Zeiss lenses anyway). I needed the best part of 6 weeks for getting used to the glasses, it seems as if I ever only have moved my eyes for looking around and now I had to get used to moving the whole head.
The trick for walking the stairs is tucking your chin in and looking down as if you were completely bedraggeled ang wait for a slap in your neck.
I am glad I pushed through though. It seems to be quite crucial to put the glasses on in the morning and then just keep them on your nose to trick the brain. Now my tension headaches have nearly vanished, unfortunately the migraine has not (as I was hoping). And as eyesight will get worse with aging it is better to now get used to progressive glasses / bifocals, when the difference between the two areas is not that huge.
That said, my dad never got used to it and simply had two different pairs of glasses he constantly switched.
Try to push through a little longer and if all fails please do visit a specialist. I adore mine because they are so knowledgable and can gibe so many tipps.
I tried varifocals and they drove me mad so I switched to contacts (I was both long and short sighted from 40). Eventually I made the best decision of my life and had laser blended vision on Harley St. Not cheap but I now have pretty much perfect eyesight ( in my 50s). Seriously it was a doddle. And the best £5k I’ve ever spent!
My husband asked about varifocal specs and the optician asked if he took off his (myopia) glasses to read and when he said he did she said once someone develops that habit it’s too hard to break so varifocals won’t work! He has got varifocal contact lenses which he really likes. I have half-size reading glasses I can peer over and feel like Miss Marple.
Hi Ruth! … always love reading anything and everything you write about – whatever the topic, it always makes my day. This bifocal dilemma is a hoot – your extremely funny, amusing spin on it is so true. If it’s any consolation, you’re not alone as you can tell … yesss, know it’s still a bummer. On the bright side, you look gorgeous with glasses (look gorgeous in anything period), not all are so lucky.
Not sure if your bifocals have a line or not, doesn’t appear on photo but hard to tell. If you’re wearing lenses with the lines, perhaps switching to the “no-line bifocals” might be an easier transition.
In the US it’s called “progressive lenses”, they’re basically multifocal lenses that provide graduated multiple vision distances (including intermediate – perfect for computer), all without a line across the lens. The progressive lenses give a smooth, seamless vision for close up, distance and everything in between – making them easier to transition (supposedly two to three days or up to two weeks depending on strength of changes in prescription) than traditional bifocals. Been using mine for a while. Do recall some of the hilarity of what you’re experiencing now but relatively speaking it was an easy transition. Some folks mentioned “varifocals” here, maybe that’s what they’re called in the UK (??not sure??). Maybe that’s what you already have … if so, this point is moot – sorry for the rambling. (btw, pls don’t judge all Americans by our current POTUS, aarrgghh)
In any event, totally understand exactly what you’re going through. At least you probably don’t need to wear glasses 24/7 … can’t see my toes clearly upon waking each morning, seriously legally blind without glasses or contacts. As for the weird bodily sensations brought on by wobbly optical illusions while transitioning over to bifocals, albeit strange and awkward, it’ll definitely pass. Gets better with time, it’s tricky navigatating at first. Also, regarding frames (without the pesky hair ripping nose pads) that’ll stay put on nose … they do exist, your perfect pair is somewhere waiting to be discovered. Did find a couple of styles that don’t slide off nose and/or sit on cheeks – sorry, don’t have more info on brand . . . made mistake of not purchasing right away.
Please check out progressive lenses, if you haven’t already. Wish you an easy breezy speedy transition with bifocals. All the best to you and your beautiful, lovely family (and pets). Thank you for sharing relatable stories in your blog … find so much pleasure and entertainment in reading them! Despite the age difference (much older here) … your words have been (still are) my company during many sleepless nights, trying times and more. You truly have a gift with words, very talented writer indeed … among so many other things! Meantime, take care and please be careful while you’re getting familiar with new bifocals – no accidents please!
P.S. btw, this is my first time leaving a “comment” . . . have never ever left a comment anywhere else (out of fear … commentor’s remorse … what else? dunno, too convoluted to delve into :</ . . . ) but was compelled to say thank you for brightening up my day:-)) . . . Well, better send this off or will chicken out and erase every word! Hope I won't regret doing this :-0
I had varifocals but they made me feel sick so I didn’t wear them. The optician suggested occupational focals which I think are varifocals which just have the lenses you need for near stuff and the computer. They didn’t make me feel sick so I actually wore them! I now have full varifocals but the transition to them from the occs was a lot easier.
I am the sad who wears their reading glasses on their head so that they are there at all times. In fact if I don’t have them on my head I feel my sight is a lot worse and my eyes feel as if they are straining which makes me think that I now find it stressful not to have them on my head. I need to try varifocals but they sound expensive and easy to lose…
Bifocals tried to kill my Dad aswell. Shortly after he had his first pair I found him in a heap at the bottom of the stairs with a bump the size of an egg on his head. Strangely after that he insisted on perservering with them.
I have varifocals which are great apart from when I’m sickening for something or under the weather when I have to use my distance glasses.
I also have computer/workspace glasses which I use at work but I find walking downstairs in them difficult and they are not suitable for driving.
My eye doc convinced me to get varifocals and all they did was make me dizzy…could never adjust to the different strengths in one lens and walking down stairs was a nightmare!
I can see fine for reading, cooking, exercising, so ultimately bought two different pairs of prescription glasses, one for driving and one for computer work. Don’t mind swapping them out and no longer have any issues.
Also, there might be hope down the line. My doc said changes in eyesight tend to stabilize in your 40’s (barring eye disease, I guess).
Thanks for always adding humor and some irreverance to your posts!
This post has honestly been one of the most entertaining blog posts I have read in a long time. Even if you have a problem with your eyesight I love how you make it something informative but still so much fun to read. I am so happy I found your blog
XOXO Lisa
simplebylisa.com
LOL. Vari focals here! Just cannot get used to them even after a year! And they’re ridiculously pricy too! Was trying to get by with some lovely reading glasses. Have some very reasonably priced Cynthia Rowley ones found in TK Maxx. Love them so much that having dropped a pair on the school run I abandoned les enfants to retrace my steps, a good 45 minute TREK. Looked like a complete wally, inspecting the pavements whilst wearing my other choice of reading glasses, the lovely leopard print ones that are sold in the wonderful emporium that is Poundland. I never did find them, and was really quite cross…. However this did lead to me haunting our TK Maxx and picking up two more identical pairs.. Ooh the relief. Segue, anybody else lose things and obsess about replacing with absolutely identical items…
However with eyesight deteriorating had to persevere with the vari focals, oh dear. The perils of coming downstairs, putting on make up, particularly mascara, cooking, hanging out the washing, trying to read anything smaller than large print is all quite quite frustrating,. Particularly when TOH says things like, ” Umm perhaps you’re wearing them for too long.” Really, blind as a bat without, thanks very much, so it is the lesser of two evils. Or so I thought. Rewind last weekend and we took the family to London for the weekend. I’d forgotten the Tube, the Tube and escalators I used to navigate in high heels, drunk as a skunk and without spectacles unless they were sunglasses pushed back onto rather big hair. Now I was literally clinging onto the right hand side, definitely no dashing up the left, negotiating getting off about half way up or down and still stumbling, tripping and clinging onto one or other of the family. And as for jockeying to get on the bloody Tube itself, well all I can say is that I must have looked completely trollied.! Bloody vari focals I hate them, apart from actually being able to see close enough to do my eyebrows. As I discovered another benefit is that I can still embarrass les enfants. One of the most effective ways to, umm. keep them in line, because once they reach a certain age the only thing that will stop them in their tracks is embarrassment! As I have mentioned to them on occasion, once what feels like the whole world has seen one gasping on gas and air, legs akimbo, with a flagrant disregard for decorum and swearing like a trooper, there is nothing you can do that will embarrass me. A superpower, which vari focals now contribute to! Ooh the irony!
i have the exact same issue!!! i mostly wear contacts though and only wear my glasses inside my house because of this hahah
dorky-and-weird.blogspot.com
xoxo <3
I’ve been wearing trifocal glasses for a couple of years, and for once something works! I have not had a single issue with them, mind you, saying that, I have to take off my glasses to read anything! So I do indeed have a problem, but not a serious one. Next week I am going to give trifocal monthly contact lenses another go. I love all of my glasses though and they hide the dreaded smile lines! I really do hope that your current situation becomes crystal clear in a short while x
I have bifocal and progressive lens glasses. Both sitting in their cases, in practically brand new condition. I bring them out when I go to the theater. Never got past the break-in period. They made me nauseated. Felt like I was in another world. A dangerous world. I own an assortment of different strength inexpensive readers for eating, reading, digging splinters out of hand. Not ideal. Some people are candidates for one distance and one near vision contacts.
My Dr says I am nearly there, however my husband tried his bi for about a month and found he just could NOT make them work and went back to his regular script. People have given him tips on glasses and how the fit being off slightly can cause problems. He hasn’t gone back in yet and I am still glasses for driving & TV aka distance and then readers for the elf writing. Ugh.
Great read though!!
I can’t cope with them either! Made me feel sea sick the whole time I was using them, I tried contact lenses for a while also as the optician said I might do better with them, but no, I can’t see with them either.
So I just put up with reading glasses, ando squint at everything else.
When I first got bifocals I experienced the same thing, but you describe it more hilariously than I did. It takes a while to get used to them and then at some point you may even get TRIfocals! Woo hoo! Then you get to start the ‘getting used to’ phase all over again. Ask me how I know that….. Watch your step Ruth.
Wooo, triple whammy!
I wear single lenses most of the time and go cross-eyed for a few seconds when I go naked-nad eye LOL XX
Hahaha
I can remember when my other half got his, he was so disorientated for such a long time, it really took him some time to adjust!
Danielle xx
https://www.fashionbeautyblog.co.uk/
Hi Ruth, get the varifocals, they are sooooo good! It takes a few days for the eyes to adjust but once they do, my goodness, what a treat!!! Everything is visible, near or short and no getting the Benz every time you shift your eyes around. Honestly they are great and people don’t even know you’re wearing them.
I got 2 pairs of varifocals and only use for TV and driving.
The whole point for me was not to have to take them on and off. I can read my phone but not my PC unless I look up to the ceiling.
So I go around in a bit of a haze.
Friends are recommending lazer but the thought of lazer in my eye makes me weak.
500 plus yo yos! For glasses I only use for distance. My old ones did that.
I’ve have howled with laughter through this post! You are just hilarious!
Thank you!
My varifocals are trying to kill me too! It’s a conspiracy… and when they are not distorting my reality, my new contacts take their turn. One is for d i s t a n c e and one is for magnifying the world to the point where I am in Land of the Giants. My brain struggles with this mightily when I put them in – which is of course an odyssey in itself – adjusts for some hours, and then in the early evening throws the towel in entirely. Which will it plump for? It can’t, quite literally decide (or make its mind up – sorry!) Two world views compete, flashing each eye’s view separately, and I stand there waiting for it to achieve a one world view again. And thank God I have monthlies so I only have to struggle with getting them out every week and a half. It should be every week, but I give up at the first attempt and have to screw myself down to do after another half week. I love them, I do. And I do like my glasses, but sometimes I do think everything looks a little more attractive when it’s gently blurred and smoothed by short sightedness. And of course they are trying to kill me. Fallen down the stairs last week, thanks contacts!
I’m sure they all meet up and plot.
I have varifocals because looking constantly between notes and screen while I write was giving me headaches. They took a couple of weeks to get used to but now they’re fine. I walk, drive, go up and down stairs, and even take them off without tangling them in my hair.
So I’d advise trying varifocals rather than bifocals because the graduation between the two areas might be easier to cope with and just stick with them. I think it’s rare that people find them difficult for long.
Good luck with them!
Thanks!
Without any specs anything further than my arms length is soft focus and due to advancing age I had to give in to varifocals 4 years ago. Oddly I never had a problem going up and down stairs (maybe I just never look where I’m going) but even now I have to swap to single distance ones to drive. That was the one skill I never mastered.
This is very timely as I just got mine yesterday☺️ I was told to ‘point your nose to where you want to see’ so now I have a sore neck and worse double chin. But I can see my phone perfectly so, swings and roundabouts
Varifocals here and I know what you mean. It has improved with wear though, rarely feel seasick anymore when lurching through the woods with the dogs. Though because I have almost no nose, mine are usually resting on my cheeks and to see I have to look straight down. Makes for some awkward encounters when I bump into people. Ageing sucks.
Why don’t you try multifocal contactlenses? Soft ones. They are made with invisible circles, so you can read any way you hold your head.
It takes some time to get used to them, for me it was just a few hours, but they are a blessing, I think. I can still wear my multifocal glasses at night, no problem. I started to wear reading glasses in my 40s, then needed multifocal glasses in my 50s . I hated to wear glasses all day so I tried contacts.
Still love them, am 67 now. But maybe it’s less complicated because I have a so called ” double+ Correction”. Don’t give up, eventually you’ll find something that works for you
I can’t wear contacts! x
This made me chuckle lots!! I am going through exactly the same thing! They’re both amazing and terrifying x
I have ‘prisms’ within my lenses. They’re supposed to relax the muscles in your eye to stop strain, so I can totally sympathise with the readjusting. My naked eye muscles don’t know what to do anymore. If I have a day or two without concentrated eye work and don’t wear my glasses (after wearing them a lot) I get really dizzy, headaches, seeing weird ‘fake’ hills etc – it’s horrid! You do have lovely frames though.
Ruth I have varifocals and the first pair I just couldn’t get on with so had to swap for just distance. Then a few years later I gave them another go and they do take quite a while to get used to but now I wouldn’t have anything else. I completely understand what you are going through as yes, they are extremely difficult to see through at first but if you persevere you will win and the Bifocals will be the looser. You made me laugh out loud though, have a great day xx
Love these glasses, would you be able to let me know what make they are please?
Yes they are Karen Millen at Specsavers x
I have not (yet) bifocals, but that might be because I haven’t been to have my eyes checked in about four years. Right now I wear contact lenses all the time, I don’t even think these are available in bifocal?
Oh well, my next appointment is in July, we will see how I come out of that.
Anne – Linda, Libra, Loca
Ruth,
Well, I’m quite a bit older than you…but I’ve been wearing bifocals for at least 10 years now…and yes, they can be quite hazardous to your health. :) Not nearly as much as the “no line” trifocals I tried two different times and got rid of BOTH times – those are the devil’s work. So bifocals are a necessary evil for me, but always a challenge:
Like the fact that i’m always scrunching up my nose and mouth while looking at the computer from the bottom “reader” portion of the bifocal. OR tilting my head way back, looking down my nose as I read something, much like a snooty librarian…which is also a good look.
But yes, the real challenge is moving in the real word without hurting myself. The worst is going down stairs — treacherous stuff.
My only advice is this — DO NOT just glance down at the ground or the staircase below you. You have to actually TILT your whole head down and try to view everything from the upper part of your bifocal. Hope that i’m explaining it right…but it’s about lowering your chin and tilting your head/glasses down…rather than lowering your glance.
Other than that, I can’t offer much help — but maybe that little bit could help you avoid breaking your foot…which I actually did 8 weeks ago, though I wasn’t wearing my glasses at the time. :) Good luck!
Best,
Marsha
My vision is so bad that my bifocal contact lenses don’t give me crisp vision at any range. I use cheapo readers (I get them for a few bucks in the geezer section of the market, near the hearing aid batteries and the hemorrhoid cream—which I also use, I’m sad to say). Or if I’m in for the night I pluck the damn things out if I want to read or do my nails or whatever activity that requires close-up clarity.
My bifocal glasses were starting to create lasting dents on my nose, so I’m getting some try-ons from Warby Parker. My ears and eyes are on a steady decline, but maybe WP frames will make me look cool while I’m buying my prep-h.
Tragic, isn’t it?
I have had varifocals for years and what you say still resonates. I always have to hold onto handrails when going up and down stairs as the floor comes up to meet me! Good luck…
That’s perfectly normal. You’re brain needs time to adjust. You’ll get used to them in a couple of weeks.