Bifocal Contacts and Monovision

It happens with all of us. Age begins to set in and our eyesight gets worse, usually the way we see close up or when reading. The arms just don't seem to be long enough anymore to hold the book far enough away. The problem is, some of us have had problems with our distance vision for quite some time. This creates a need to have two separate areas of our vision corrected. For contact lens wearers, this can be done one of two ways, with bifocal contact lenses or with monovison.

The condition of needing eyesight correction both near and far as you get older is called presbyopia. Bifocal eyeglasses have been around for quite some time, and it was only a matter of time before that technology came to contact lenses as well. In bifocal contact lenses, both the corrective prescriptions for seeing near and far are corrected within the same lenses. There are a few bifocal lens designs, each being better for different eyesight problems and lifestyles.

A concentric lens looks like a bull's eye pattern, with one of the two prescriptions in the middle, and the other around the outside. The lifestyle of the person wearing the lens determines which prescription goes in which spot. Occasionally a midrange eyesight correction is needed, such as the distance of computer viewing, and in this case, a third ring of prescription is added in. Sometimes the rings of vision correction aren't distinct and change gradually, similar to progressive eyeglasses.

In aspheric multifocal contact lenses, both of the two vision corrections, near and far, are placed towards the middle, or close to the pupil. Your eyes only use the portion of the lens that is needed, whether you are looking near or far. Everything else is blocked from your vision. Both the aspheric lens and the concentric lens are normally used on people that are just beginning to experience presbyopia.

Translating lenses are yet another type of contact lens and the different prescriptions, whether it is two or three, are more distinct, and don't change gradually. Your eyes are required to shift their focus as needed. These lenses more closely resemble standard bifocal eyeglasses with one prescription on the bottom half and another on the top half, but it can be split into thirds as well.

Since all contacts rotate some when you blink your eyes, the translating lenses can become hard to use, as your eyes need to shift focus as they rotate. For this reason, they are sometimes weighted or flattened a little at the bottom, to help prevent them from rotating. People that have a dry eye problem or drooping eyelids don't do well with this type of lens.

Alternately, instead of bifocal contact lenses, monovision contact lenses are sometimes used. It's much more simple than it sounds. This is when you are fitted for a prescription to see far in one eye and a prescription to see near in the other. Your eyes train themselves to look far with one and look near with the other. Sometimes a bifocal lens can be used in one eye along with a monovision lens in the other. The downside is that occasionally the wearers of these lenses report a loss of depth to their vision.

No matter which type of lens is right for you, Discount Contact Lenses carries many different choices for both bifocal lenses and monovision. These are carried from all the major providers, such as Bausch & Lomb, Ciba Vision, Johnson & Johnson, and Cooper Vision.

Laura Tucker is a 42-year-old freelance writer and mother of two. For the past two years, she has been a featured writer at realityshack.com, covering recaps and commentary on American Idol, The Amazing Race, and Big Brother, among others. Laura has also written content for many other websites and has had one of her movie reviews published in a print magazine. In her spare time, she enjoys martial arts as an instructor and student and obtained her black belt in 2006. Laura wrote this article about contacts for Discount Contact Lenses.com.