I Wear Soft Lenses and I Can’t Read Anymore…Help!

If you have been wearing soft contact lenses for many years, you are likely used to applying your contact lenses without a second thought and seeing clearly all day. If you are in your forties, you may have noticed yourself moving your phone or other reading material further from your face to see it clearly. While this may indicate you need a reading prescription, don’t worry! Your eye doctor is able to adjust your contact lens prescription to include a reading prescription. This may include switching to a multifocal contact lens, which has different rings of prescription, or monovision, meaning you use your dominant eye for distance and your non-dominant eye for reading. Your doctor will test which eye is dominant in your appointment.

The main difference between these lenses is that when wearing multifocal contact lenses, you are using both eyes for far, intermediate (computer), and reading distances. When using monovision contact lenses, one eye is used for far vision only, and the other eye is used only for reading. This may be hard to adjust to for some patients. For monovision, you may need to wear a pair of glasses for comfortable intermediate vision. You can also discuss with your doctor if you may benefit more from using one eye for distance and one eye for computer vision (in this case, you would need a pair of glasses for reading).

While this is just an intro into the world of contact lenses with a reading prescription, we hope you know that the bottom line is you have options. Schedule an appointment with your doctor to get a reading prescription added to your contact lens prescription.