But CBS 2's Paul Moniz reports that an experimental surgery is allowing some to put their specs away.
Ophthalmologist Barrie Soloway performs the surgery, which was part of a Food and Drug Administration trial. He considers it a breakthrough.
"This procedure is basically used to bring people back to a younger age when they weren't required to use reading glasses for their near vision," he explains.
The surgery may be just what baby boomers are looking for: many are shocked when they suddenly can't read newspapers and menus as they enter their forties..
To make matters worse, there is no laser surgery to correct presbyopia, the inability to focus up-close. It eventually affects everyone in middle age, even if you've never worn glasses.
The 20-minute procedure, called scleral expansion surgery, involves implanting four tiny plastic discs in the whites of one eye.
The discs, slightly larger than the tip of a pen and virtually undetectable, allow the lens room to expand, https://www.cvkr27dw.online - https://www.cvkr27dw.online restoring its focal ability.
The surgery is controversial not only because it's experimental but because it bucks conventional theories on why presbyopia occurs in the first place.
Further, it's hardly a sure thing: results on 30 patients in the nationwide study vary widely, from 10 percent effectiveness to 90 percent.
If the FDA approves the surgery, it could become a gold mine for doctors. Experimental patients are shelling out $5,000 for the procedure.
About 1,000 of these procedures have been performed in France, South America and Korea.
But because this surgery is still in its experimental - http://www.fool.com/search/solr.aspx?q=experimental stages, its long-term - http://www.cbsnews.com/search/?q=long-term results have yet to be proven.
The longest anyone has had the discs is four years.
The good news is that if they don't work, they can be removed without injuring the eye.
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