How to Choose the Right Strength for Your Reading Glasses - GoodRx (2024)

You might think of reading glasses as a symbol of old age, but the fact is that many younger people need to start using them in their 40s — or even earlier.

As we mature, our eyes change and it becomes more difficult to see objects clearly up close. This gradual process of decline in our eyesight is called presbyopia. Trouble focusing on and reading small print can be one of the first signs.

The good news is that presbyopia is a natural and normal experience, and there are plenty of options for dealing with its effects. For most people with presbyopia who have never needed glasses before, over-the-counter reading glasses are a safe and effective solution.

Do I need reading glasses or prescription lenses?

Reading glasses are designed to help you see up close. They’re helpful for reading and doing work that is near at hand.

If you see well at a distance but are finding it hard to read small print, over-the-counter reading glasses from a drugstore will probably work well for you.

On the other hand, if your vision is blurry at a distance, reading glasses aren’t going to do the trick. Instead, you’ll want to talk to an eye care professional about solutions to help you see both up close and at a distance.

How do reading glasses work?

As we age, our most comfortable reading distance gets farther and farther away from where it was in younger years. The natural lenses inside our eyes get stiffer with time, making it harder to focus on anything up close.

Reading glasses pull your comfortable focus point closer to you. That is, they help you see closer in than you naturally can. The stronger your reading glasses, the closer they will help you see.

Are reading glasses just magnifiers?

No, although many people think of them this way. A magnifying lens makes things appear larger. Reading glasses actually move your clearest point of focus to a distance closer to you.

Different types of reading glasses

Picking out your first pair of reading glasses can be confusing. Often, store displays contain a mix of glasses labeled with different numbers. It can be hard to know where to start.

What’s the difference between +1.00, +1.25, and +1.50 reading glasses?

Reading glasses come in a variety of strengths, and their strength is shown in diopters, which are units that describe the corrective power of a lens, based on how near or how far your clearest area of focus is to your eye. A negative number represents nearsightedness, while a positive number means farsightedness. The higher the number of diopters, the stronger the power of the glasses. That means +1.50 diopters are stronger than +1.00 diopters.

Or, put another way, the higher the number, the closer you’ll be able to see.

On an over-the-counter display, you might find glasses ranging from +0.75 diopters to about+ 3.5 diopters.

What is the highest strength for reading glasses?

It’s not hard to find reading glasses up to about 3 diopters (+3.00) over the counter. Higher strengths, which can be useful for very fine, close-up work, or very small print, are available, but you might need to place an online order or talk to an eye care specialist.

What strength reading glasses should I look for?

The best way to find the right strength of reading glasses for yourself is to try on different pairs and see how easily you can read standard-sized writing at a distance that is comfortable for you.

It’s possible you’ll need more than one pair of readers. You might prefer stronger glasses for very close activities, like reading or beadwork, but weaker glasses for activities that are a bit farther away, like seeing a computer screen or woodworking. Remember, the higher the number, the closer you’ll be able to see.

Most likely, you’ll need different reading glasses over time. That’s because your natural lenses will continue to get stiffer, and your natural focus point will continue to move farther away. Many people increase the strength of their reading glasses every few years until about age 60, when presbyopia usually stops changing.

What if I wear glasses or contacts already?

If you wear contacts or if you’ve had refractive eye surgery (like LASIK), it can still be helpful to add reading glasses when presbyopia kicks in. That’s because your eyes have been corrected (either surgically or because of your contacts) to see well at a distance. Focusing to see up close is another matter, and it’s still going to get more challenging as you get older.

The situation is a bit different if you wear glasses every day. That’s because you’ll need to take your glasses off to put on your readers. This will affect the strength of the reading glasses you need.

• If you’re farsighted — that is, you already wear glasses to see up close — you’ll likely need stronger reading glasses to start out with.

• If you’re nearsighted — that is, you wear glasses to see far away or to drive — you can probably start with lower-strength readers.

Of course, if you’re already wearing prescription glasses every day, adding readers may not be a great solution. Making the switch to bifocals or progressive lenses might make more sense than juggling two pairs of glasses.

Reading glasses resources and calculators

If you are shopping online or if you would like to have a starting point for trying on reading glasses, it can be helpful to use a reading glasses calculator. These tools use information about your age and reading habits to make a recommendation about what strength reading glasses might work best for you.

That said, the only way to know if you’ve picked the right reading glasses is to try them. Your own personal preferences play a role in how close you can comfortably focus and how far away you like to hold your newspaper.

What if my reading glasses are too strong?

If wearing your new reading glasses makes you want to hold a newspaper closer than usual, that could be a sign your glasses are too strong. Don’t worry: This won’t hurt you, but you might not enjoy reading that way.

It’s worth pointing out that presbyopia happens because our eyes’ natural lenses get stiffer and harder to bend over time. This change occurs because of chemical shifts inside the lenses themselves. However, in order to bend, our lenses are pulled by tiny muscles inside our eyes. Some people believe that wearing too-strong reading glasses could mean less exercise for those tiny muscles. And if those muscles grow weak, bending those stiff lenses could get even harder. The result could be presbyopia that progresses slightly faster than it otherwise might.

Are over-the-counter reading glasses safe?

Reading glasses are both safe and effective. You won’t hurt your eyes if you choose to wear reading glasses, and it doesn’t hurt anything if you choose not to wear them. The changes of presbyopia are going to happen either way.

Can I wear my reading glasses all the time?

Yes, you can, but wearing reading glasses could make it a struggle to focus on objects that are farther away. If you want to keep your reading glasses on all the time, you might want to look for a pair of half-rimmed reading glasses. Then you can peek above the glasses when you want to see something at a distance.

Can you watch TV with reading glasses?

You won’t hurt your eyes by watching TV with reading glasses, but reading glasses aren’t designed for that. If you find that reading glasses are helping you see the TV, it could be a sign you need prescription glasses for other distance activities, like driving or golfing. If that’s the case, it’s worth booking an eye test.

I don’t want reading glasses! Are there other options?

If you don’t like reaching for your readers every time you want to see something up close, there are other ways of dealing with the effects of presbyopia.

Bifocals and progressive (no-line bifocal) prescription glasses combine up close and distance prescriptions into a single lens. Bifocal lenses are built with reading glasses on the bottom and a prescription for distance vision on the top. These are convenient because you can wear the same pair of glasses all the time, no matter what you’re doing.

If you like the idea of bifocals but you don’t need a prescription for distance vision, it’s possible to get the top part with clear glass alone.

Bifocal contact lenses are available, too. These work a bit differently from bifocal glasses, but they still combine different prescriptions into a single lens that you wear all the time.

Monovision, in which one eye has a prescription to see up close, and the other eye has a prescription to see at a distance, is another way to make contact lenses work for some people with presbyopia.

Finally, surgery can occasionally be an option for people with presbyopia, especially if they are developing cataracts. During cataract surgery, multifocal lenses (similar to bifocal lenses) can sometimes be implanted inside the eyes.

LASIK and other types of refractive surgery are occasionally used for presbyopia, but these options are tricky solutions, in part because your natural focus will continue to change over time.