The eyes have it: Glasses, contacts or readers? How to care for your eyes through all stages of life

You know the scene: A co-worker hands you something to read, and you find yourself squinting, craning your neck and shifting the paper to read the text.

"At some point, your arms don't extend far enough, and you need to get glasses," says Dr. John Kinder, an ophthalmologist at Eye Consultants in Cape Girardeau. As we get older, he explains, the lens of the eye becomes stiffer and loses the ability to shift and focus as well as it did in our younger years.

"We expect to see changes while children are growing. The next big change happens in our 40s," says Dr. Laura Evans of Leet EyeCare in Cape Girardeau. "It's called presbyopia -- when we start needing help with reading even if we already have a distance correction. You may need bifocals or no-line bifocals, called progressives."

Glasses on display at Leet Eyecare in Cape Girardeau. (Glenn Landberg)

If you don't already wear glasses or contacts and you only do a couple hours of up-close reading or work per day, you may benefit from the ever-popular and stylish "readers" to help you read or see the computer screen.

"If your eyes don't need distance vision correction, you're generally OK with readers," says Kinder.

However, he says eyes tend to be different, with one more nearsighted or farsighted than the other. If you experience eye strain and headaches with your readers, it's probably time to make an eye doctor appointment.

"Over-the-counter readers only have the same prescription for the right eye and the left eye," says Evans. "Prescription glasses are more specific or custom-made. If you're on the computer or doing paperwork up-close for more than a couple hours a day, you need prescription glasses when things are blurry."

Evans and Kinder add that eye exams are important not just for vision correction, but for overall eye health -- cataracts and macular degeneration affect many people as they get older.

"Pretty much everyone, as long as they live long enough, will end up with cataracts, which is opacity of the lens inside the eye. You can pretty much count on that," says Evans.

Glasses on display at Leet Eyecare in Cape Girardeau. (Glenn Landberg)

Sunglasses with UV protection can slow down cataracts and macular degeneration, she says. Eating vegetables, especially leafy green ones, provides antioxidants that can also prevent macular degeneration.

GLENN LANDBERG ~ glandberg@semissourian.com

Dry, irritated eyes may also occur as we get older.

"Women, especially, tend to have more dry eye troubles -- they may feel dry or burn more at the end of the day," says Kinder. "Artificial tears or prescription medications can alleviate that."

While you're making your own appointment, don't overlook your children -- the American Optometric Association recommends that infants be seen between 6 and 12 months of age, again at age 3, and again before kindergarten, Evans notes.

"Sometimes people don't realize we see children that early. It can prevent a lot of problems that come up once they start school," she says.