What is the difference between OTC reading glasses and prescription eyeglasses?

According to my optometrist, for basic reading glasses, there’s no difference. But then, I use them for farsightedness due to normal aging.

If you’re nearsighted, reading glasses aren’t going to do a thing for you. They’re just two magnifying glasses inside of frames. That means they make things close up look bigger. They make things far away look even more fuzzy.

Have you ever tried looking across the room through a magnifying glass? It’s not a pretty picture…well, it’s not really a picture at all…

If you have an astigmatism, there’s a huge difference.

What’s your prescription?

edit: Doh, readers are for farsighted people, not nearsighted people. This would never work for you.

On some OTC glasses that I’ve seen there are numbers like -1.5 or -2. For me the problem is that my eyes need about -10.5 to see 20/20, which means those useless -1 and -2 would never help me. That forces me to get prescription lenses. I suppose that if you try on every pair of OTCs and it helps, you should definitely get them instead of prescription ones.

Many people have different needs for each eye. Until my husband got prescription readers, he thought the OTC type were fine. Once he got glasses with different prescriptions for each lens he was amazed at the difference.

My optometrist told me OTC readers are fine if you are just starting to have trouble reading text at a near distance. It can save you a year or so before you have to shell out the big bucks for bifocals, etc.