Problems With Reading Glasses

Presbyopia, an eye condition that naturally occurs with age as the inner eye thickens and loses flexibility, causes blurred vision during reading and looking at other nearby objects. Many sufferers of presbyopia opt to treat their symptoms using inexpensive drugstore reading glasses. While the price certainly seems appealing, these glasses sometimes come with a variety of problems.

Prescription Specifics

• Drugstore reading glasses only address basic problems with presbyopia. Makers of these inexpensive, ready-made glasses basically make "one size fits all" products. Most people who have eyesight problems require a different prescription for each eye, but drugstore glasses only offer frames with identical lenses, meaning that one eye may receive the correct prescription while the other does not. Moreover, these glasses fail to correct astigmatism, and wearers of these glasses cannot customize the optical center of the lenses.

Headaches and Other Physical Symptoms

• Both drugstore and prescription reading glasses occasionally cause headaches, but drugstore glasses pose a greater risk of doing so than prescription lenses. The optical centers of the lenses often fall away from the center of your pupils instead of directly in front, usually resulting in additional eyestrain. Even if the optical centers of the lenses line up with your pupils, eyestrain will occur if the prescription varies too much from what your eyes need. In severe cases, headaches and nausea accompany this eyestrain.

  Prescription reading glasses may also cause headaches, but these headaches should calm down once you adjust to the lenses after a few days. If not, consult your eye doctor.

Avoiding Eye Exams

• Individuals who buy drugstore reading glasses simply to avoid an eye exam risk missing a potentially serious problem with their eyes -- particularly if they notice a sudden, rapid decrease in their vision. For most people, the need for new reading glasses often comes about as a natural part of the aging process. For others, however, serious eye diseases such as glaucoma may escape detection unless caught at its early stages during an eye exam. Even without eye disease, an individual wearing an incorrect self-diagnosed prescription runs the risk of worsening their eyesight more rapidly.

Defects in the Glasses

• To keep the prices low and appealing, manufacturers of drugstore glasses usually mass produce their lenses and frames. As a result, the lenses may have tiny bubbles, waves or other defects, and the frames may become bent or uneven. Always inspect drugstore glasses thoroughly before making a purchase, and choose the highest quality pair available in the store.

Other Uses

• Reading glasses only serve as reading glasses. Any object viewed through your glasses past an arm's length will likely appear blurred. Reading glasses make poor computer glasses as well because people usually view printed matter at a closer range than they do text on a computer screen. People who use reading glasses to read on the computer may also unconsciously tilt their head back to do so, putting strain on the neck muscles as a result.