Reading glasses from the pharmacy, which retail for about $15-20 US Dollars (USD), are often preferred by people who don’t want to pay the expense of prescription glasses. Some people also want to skip eye exams, and assume if their vision is slightly improved by reading glasses from the pharmacy, then there’s no need to see an ophthalmologist or optometrist. While there are some people who can benefit from these less expensive glasses, others do themselves a disservice by avoiding an eye exam, and won’t reap the same benefits from these glasses because of eye conditions that aren’t identified and treated.

If you truly have presbyopia, you’ll have difficulty reading things that are close up, and have challenges focusing on small print. People often hold things like books and newspapers at arm’s length in order to focus better, and this condition tends to affect more people as they hit their 40s. While presbyopia may be a likely cause for your eye condition, there are other conditions that can't be treated by reading glasses from the pharmacy. Further, you may not be equally far-sighted in both eyes. Most reading glasses from the pharmacy have lenses with matching strengths of magnification, which you may not need.

More commonly, people have different degrees of sight in each eye, and when you see an eye doctor, he/she measures exactly which strength lens is needed for each eye. This is usually a better choice than using reading glasses from the pharmacy, since the glasses available by prescription will be better designed for your eyes. In the rare circumstance that your eyes are both equally far-sighted, you can ask your optometrist what strength reading glasses from the pharmacy are best for you, which can save a little money.

As we age, it is very important to have yearly eye examinations. If you’re concerned about payment for these, do know that many communities have free eye screening programs. Check with a local optometrist, a senior center, or free medical clinics if you don’t have a health plan that covers eye exams. Other conditions may be present that require not just glasses, but treatment. For instance, people with glaucoma may not even know they have the condition, or they may already be experiencing symptoms like blurred vision. This blurred vision can be mistaken for trouble with reading, but it’s not a condition that can be fixed by reading glasses from the pharmacy.

Challenges reading small text can also be due to conditions like astigmatism, or alternately, you may be developing both nearsightedness and farsightedness. We tend to compensate for minor changes to our eyes, and may not know we need glasses to correct vision problems. The main point, is that correcting vision problems with reading glasses from the pharmacy can be risky to the health.

Before buying a pair of glasses from the drug store, you really should get an eye examination to rule out common diseases of the eyes, which may not even affect vision, initially when there is the best chance for treatment. The eye doctor also gets a more accurate measurement of lens strength you require, and makes sure that you don’t need prescription lenses or medications to correct other problems of which you are not aware. Without seeing an eye doctor first, those reading glasses may work for a time, but might mask more severe problems that are easily identified by an eye doctor.