Question For Optometrist Or Optician

[Stargazer]

Does eyesight autotmatically deteriorate with age? My eyesight is seriously reduced when there is no artificial light in the evening. I have to feel my way from kitchen to living room if I do not bother to switch on the light. At night I have no vision at all without anything to guide me. It is to save electricity that I do not leave the light on all the time. I have very good quality varifocal lenses (Varilux).

[Old_Geezer]

I think it clear that with age things are vulnerable to deterioration. One may get away with it, but if you've symptoms get tested.

[237SJ]

I`m not an optometrist but I have heard that pupil dilation deteriorates with age. So your eyes can't react so quickly between light and dark scenarios.

[gingejbee]

Switching off lights (assuming they're LED) really doesn't save much electricity at all (compared with lots of other things in the home) and can be very dangerous.

[Hopkirk]

Gingejbee is right. Our fathers used to moan about the cost of lights being left on so it is ingrained in is.
However modern LED lights use very little electricity, so stop creeping round in the gloom.

[Canary42]

Night vision does deteriorate at advanced age.

[perseverer]

Cataracts?

[ladybirder]

Have you got cataracts? When I had mine removed I couldn't believe the difference. It was as if they'd given me a new pair of eyes. I didn't even know I had cataracts until I got an appointment to have first one and then the other removed.

I rarely use my "very good quality varifocal lenses".

[Buenchico]

Relevant information from Specsavers:
https://www.specsavers.co.uk/eye-health/night-blindness-nyctalopia

I experience some of the symptoms mentioned there myself. (e.g. poorer low light vision than I used to have and my eyes taking time to adapt when, say, going into a brightly-lit supermarket on a dark night). Having had an eye test only 3½ months ago, I just put it down to the very early stages of cataracts forming (which the optician said were nothing to worry about yet), plus simply getting old.

[Peter Pedant]

chrissakes, yes yes and yes
My eyes grow dim with age

The eyes truly do dim with age. For one thing, the pupils — the round, black holes that let light stream into the eyeball — get smaller as people get older. Because of this process, called pupillary miosis, the pupils remain small even in dark places, resulting in less light entering an older eye.

and yes leave LED lights on - it costs more to switch on and off - as fluorescent lighting

[Khandro]

Sadly, Stargazer;

'...The sixth age shifts
Into the lean and slippered pantaloon,
With spectacles on nose and pouch on side;
His youthful hose, well saved, a world too wide
For his shrunk shank; and his big manly voice,
Turning again toward childish treble, pipes
And whistles in his sound. Last scene of all,
That ends this strange eventful history,
Is second childishness and mere oblivion,
Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything.'


William Shakespeare As You Like It


Sigh!