Reading Contacts

With today's aging population, more and more people are needing vision correction for up close b/c they're over 40 (presbyopia). This has turned into a huge portion of my day. Many patients who are tired of "reading glasses" and bifocals naturally assume that contact lenses could be the ideal solution for them! Contacts allow you to see w/o digging out those reading glasses, right? Well...kinda. Multifocal contacts and monovision both work and have their place in eye care. I Rx plenty of both. BUT: if you are virtually prescriptionless and see AWESOME far away w/o glasses...and you need reading glasses to see clearly UP CLOSE...then the chances of you loving multifocal contact lenses or monovision is SLIM. Those are in the super high failure rate category. I don't know what the numbers are but they have to be over 80% failure. Multifocals and monovision work best if: 1) you've had refractive error for a long time, preferably before you were presbyopic 2) you have worn soft contacts before. "Reading contacts" are a VERY HIGH FAILURE RATE if: 1) you see great far away but now need reading glasses 2) you've never worn contacts before. I always let people try contacts who inquire about them, even if they see great far away...but I temper their expectation as well. It *rarely* works.