Problem In Reading Small Fonts. Diagnosed With Convergence Insufficiency And Presbyopia. Any Suggestions?

Posted on Fri, 8 Nov 2013

Medically reviewed by Ask A Doctor - 24x7 Medical Review Team

Fri, 8 Nov 2013 Answered on

Fri, 29 Nov 2013 Last reviewed on

Question : I am a 30 year old male working in the IT Industry. I haven't had any problems with my eyes till about 2 years ago. Since then, I have had problems reading small fonts and in dim light after a few hours of work. My eyes feel very tired after just 1 hour of reading and then, I have to really struggle to read. I have visited many eye doctors, some of whom said I may have convergence insufficiency and recommended eye exercises. As this didn't help., and my reading vision deteriorated further, I went to another doctor recently, who said I have Presbyopia and recommended reading glasses +1.25. I hear that this is generally the case only after age of 40+. Can this happen for ~30 years also? Wearing these reading glasses is really helping me, but is that the only solution, or can the eye exercises that the other doctors recommended help in the long term?

Answered by Dr. Pavan Kumar Gupta (1 hour later)

Brief answer...given below Detailed answer... Hello, Thanks for the query. You are right that presbyopia generally starts after the age of 40 years,since it is because of the natural ageing process.But presbyopia can develop in younger age as in you and specially in people who have a job requiring a lot of close up work or in people who live and work in hot climate with lots of ultraviolet sunlight exposure. Treatment is generally glasses only which can be bifocal or progressive or contact lenses. In some cases an operation called as PRELEX can be done where your old inflexible natural lens in the eye is replaced with an artificial one. Exercises of eyes would not make much difference. I hope it helps however you may revert to me for any further query. Best of luck Thanks

Above answer was peer-reviewed by : Dr. Chakravarthy Mazumdar