I can See Clearly Now

I had to get glasses at age twelve. Not a good age. In fact as a young teen, feeling rather self-conscious about my glasses, I would opt for not wearing them, to the point of making a fool out of myself. Those were the days. Lucky for me, my dad had a soft heart when it came to these kind of things, having lost his eye in an accident as a young boy. Maybe it was that, maybe it was just that he liked new technology. He bought me contact lenses and I've been wearing contacts ever since, with no problems.


That is until, a few years ago when, my age started doing some funny things with my eyes. My optometrist suggested something I did not want to hear - reading glasses.

Well, the good thing is that I had done my homework and found out that some people wear lenses in such a way that they can use one for distance and one for reading. I questioned her about this and she replied that it works for some people.

In this case a person would use their dominant eye for distance with a contact lens at optimum prescription. The other eye is used for reading with a prescription a little lower than optimum, just right for close up reading. The end result is a small compromise in distance vision, but not really not that noticeable. And no - you don't have to close one eye to focus either way.

We tested to see which is my dominant eye. You can do a quick test too. In fact, it might be good to know this for any kind of target practice.

1. Make a 1 1/2 inch circle or window with both of your hands by overlapping your thumbs and the top half of your fingers.
2. Extend your arms and look toward a target about 20 feet away.
3. Keeping both eyes open, move your hands back to your face, still looking at the target through your hands and keeping the target in view. Whichever eye your hands gravitate toward is your dominant eye.
4. Double check by extending your arms with hands forming a window to look through, and closing your non-dominant eye. The target should remain centered in the opening.

So, for now, no worries about suddenly needing glasses to read a menu and having to remember which purse I left my reading glasses in. I'm quite happy with my contacts and the freedom I can still enjoy this way.