Why is my eyesight getting better with age?

August 28, 2023 3:42 AM

My vision keeps getting better and better. I’m aware if it happens suddenly, it can signify a problem, but my eye exams are all healthy. Have you experienced this? What’s the deal, and will I be 20/20 by my 60s?

I’m female, in my 40s. I’ve had glasses since elementary school; initially a very light prescription and then a bit heavier in middle school (-3.50). In my 20s and 30s, my vision seemed to get a bit worse (-4.50-ish) and I also elected to overcorrect my glasses for driving at night. Over the past few years, however, my vision is slowly improving and I’m now at -2.75 in both eyes. What gives?

I do have a mild astigmatism that comes and goes. All of my optical exams, glaucoma testing, etc are healthy. I have no health problems, do not smoke, and am not at risk for diabetes, high blood pressure, or other medical condition.

posted by stillmoving to Health & Fitness (19 answers total)

This is a normal occurrence. I've experienced the same thing in my late thirties and the eye doctors have explained that around this age near sightedness improves. Eventually our ability to read things up close will decline though and that's when a dual lens will be needed. I'm still in one lens but notice that I know need more light to help read.
posted by icaicaer at 4:03 AM on August 28, 2023 [6 favorites]

Yup, this happened to me and now I have progressive lenses.
posted by warriorqueen at 4:27 AM on August 28, 2023 [1 favorite]

Mine got better and at 40, I went to 20/20 for the first time in my life. My optometrist indicated that sometimes as we get into our 30s and 40s our diet and exercise choices often get more consistent and better for our eyes and that may be why it's improving. I also added fish oil around 35 which reduced some dry eye symptoms that were likely blurring my day to day vision.
posted by openhearted at 4:34 AM on August 28, 2023 [1 favorite]

Yes, I am also short sighted and in my 40s, and find myself using my glasses less and less for reading and screens. The optometrist said, yes, that’s ageing working.
posted by Fiasco da Gama at 4:56 AM on August 28, 2023 [1 favorite]

Another near-sighted 40-something here and my optometrist said, yes, vision improvement is very common in your 40s and to enjoy it while it lasts.
posted by fancypants at 5:39 AM on August 28, 2023

It's a bell curve. My optometrist told me about this as a bifocaled teenager - particularly because I am both nearsighted and farsighted, I would experience a period where they basically cancelled each other AND my astigmatism out and I'd "basically not need glasses" in at least some of my 40s, until they crossed the equilibrium point and got worse again.

Which turned out to be true. At one point, I had a prescription that was very nearly plano in my right eye, while my left (which has the worse astigmatism) still needed mild correction.

He did NOT tell me about the extremely sharp decline related to loss of estrogen, where I probably could have qualified for new scrips every 4 months for about 2 years there. I don't even have extreme corrections, but both eyes changed detectably AND, for fun, in different directions and degrees. Age-related inelasticity also means your ability to switch between near and far just falls the fuck apart, it's the worst, I now have to be careful about doing stuff like checking my phone or looking at navigation directions for a few minutes before I drive, because I'll have to sit there waiting for my distance vision to come back.
posted by Lyn Never at 6:04 AM on August 28, 2023 [4 favorites]

I (0% expert) thought the reason was that it's common to become more farsighted (and thus less nearsighted) with age. So if you start out nearsighted, there'll be a period where increased presbyopia actually brings you closer to normal.
posted by trig at 6:12 AM on August 28, 2023 [3 favorites]

The explanation is that nearsightedness is roughly caused by having eyeballs that are "too long" i.e. the distance between the different components of your eye are too large for optimal vision. As you age, lots of parts of the body shrink including the eye. Thus your eye shape is getting closer to the optimal proportions for good sight.
posted by mmascolino at 6:54 AM on August 28, 2023

My eyesight improved in my 30s. The optician said that was common. It got dramatically worse again when I hit perimenopause.
posted by Ballad of Peckham Rye at 7:18 AM on August 28, 2023

Yeah, mine's been improving on the nearsighted front for years. I only wear my glasses to drive at this point. It's very weird.
posted by jenfullmoon at 8:07 AM on August 28, 2023

As someone who is going through this (although I started off with -.75 in my "bad" eye) who recently asked his optometrist about it: My eye shape is changing. I'm just lucky that it's changing in a way that makes my vision better. However, it's almost certainly going to keep changing, and it will likely just keep on changing as it goes by 20/20 vision and then things will get worse after many years of getting better.
posted by Back At It Again At Krispy Kreme at 8:32 AM on August 28, 2023

Same thing happened to me, the optician also explained to me my eyes would probably continue to get less nearsighted as I got older and farsightedness would then kick in.
posted by cgg at 8:34 AM on August 28, 2023

As noted by others, this is pretty normal. I also have fairly bad astigmatism, and the same things happened to me. In addition to the near vs farsighted thing, my optician indicated that for most people, in your 40s the axis of your astigmatism shifts and while it's doing that, you may temporarily end up with better vision due to that. (I don't think she explained why that happened, if it's different that the general age related eyeball changes noted above.).
posted by Dorothea Ladislaw at 9:33 AM on August 28, 2023

Can confirm this is a normal part of your 40s, and a precursor to possibly needing reading glasses at some point.
posted by bluedaisy at 1:29 PM on August 28, 2023

Adding my voice to the chorus of "Yes, this is normal."

I'm in my early 40s and have needed vision correction since I was 10. At my last vision exam about a year ago, the optometrist noted I had some slight vision improvement and called it "mother nature's kiss-and-a-slap" -- by which she meant it's common for eyesight to improve with age at a certain point, and then the next change for many is needing bifocals later down the line.
posted by rhiannonstone at 2:33 PM on August 28, 2023

Uh, look I don’t want to alarm you unnecessarily, however when my mother was in her mid 40s she began experiencing blurry vision when wearing her glasses. She went to the optometrist who told her that her eyesight, which had been nearsighted for all of her adult life, had become 20/20 again and the glasses were causing her headaches. So then she went to an ophthalmologist, and after an exam that guy told her to go to a hospital IMMEDIATELY.

Apparently she had a fast growing tumor that was on the outside of her brain, pressing on the space between the brain and one of her eyeballs, distorting it’s shape. The 20/20 vision was just a side-effect, and if it hadn’t been for that warning sign, the tumor could’ve grown to where it would have been in operable.

So please go see an ophthalmologist.
posted by The Pluto Gangsta at 9:09 AM on August 29, 2023 [1 favorite]

I've been told one's lenses tend to thicken as we age, which is why people with excellent vision in their twenties are sprouting reading glasses by their fifties. If you've been nearsighted, it can be a boon to gain clearer vision.

(Note this is not universal: I still wear the same prescription I did as a teenager in 1985.)
posted by ricochet biscuit at 4:22 PM on August 29, 2023

On a related note, I have too big of optic nerves (note: NOT glaucoma, I'm fine), but my corneas are too thick, so it all works out to be fine!

I do not enjoy my eye doctor visits these years, it's all confusing shit like this.
posted by jenfullmoon at 9:00 PM on August 29, 2023

Hello, while this post is still open I'd really like to know if the OP called an ophthalmologist or not. One thing I didn't mention in my earlier answer is just how rapid the whole development was: the ophthalmologist told her to go to the hospital to obtain the tumor diagnosis right away, and not even to drive there, but to take a taxicab instead. All of this, from the original optometrist appointment to the hospital, was a single frightening 12-hour span.
posted by The Pluto Gangsta at 8:22 AM on September 13, 2023