The Getting Old Thread

Happy birthday Jambo!

I'm having to increase text size to 110%, perhaps higher

Yes, I do need an eye test. +2 ATM, but that prescription is a few years old. Also far too much screen time recently. Ugh.

I use standard text size on my own 1080p monitor but the screens in the office are 1440p and default text is frankly to small.

We basically live in a shithole through the week and then I tend to do some degree of spring clean at the weekend and get it shipshape.

Literally having a ten minute break for my back after doing the bathroom and bog (they are separated here). FML. The seizing up is real.

I'm wondering if I need reading glasses. Having a bit of trouble reading small text/at long distances, I zoom in webpages more than I used to, and my eyes get sleepy a lot. Not crippling, but it's getting annoying. I don't mind glasses, I've been jealous of the sexy foureyes since I was little, but how do you do this? Do I need to get my eyes prodded by an optomagician or do you just buy cheap reading glasses and see if they help first?

Thanks, but I'm not travelling across the North Sea just to get my eyes poked for free by a foreigner.

It does sound like the wise thing to do, obviously, but annoying! I'll have to take the tram and everything.

I have fairly mild short-sightedness and minor astigmatism. I don't need glasses but it's mostly just useful to read things a further away.

The optician said that my eye sight is actually slightly better than it was at my previous test (3 years prior). Apparently it's not unsual, because people tend to get longer-sighted as they age due to eye muscles lengthening, or something like that, which means short-sightedness can actually improve to a degree.

So weirdly aging has actually improved my vision, very slightly. Still have astigmatism though so glasses are mostly helpful at night to stop lights looking like twinkling stars.

My ageing eyes don't need glasses yet, but it's in the post.

Lighting is becoming very important. 😢

incidentally, while society occasionally ponders retesting 70+ yr olds to keep their driving licence I'm much more inclined to mandate regular eye tests as a licence condition throughout life

really not having a go at anyone because it's an extremely common statement but i do wonder how often "hadn't had an eye test in thirty years" is preceded by "drove through a bus-stop full of nuns" in the accident report

My wife’s dad is 92 and is still driving. It’s a total disgrace, he is a complete liability, and no one wants to be in the car with him. We are having major issues even being taken seriously by doctors and DVLA - he just keeps driving and refuses to stop, and my wife cannot get anyone to listen. They probably will listen if / when he kills someone.

I had to take my mum's keys away from her in the end. Luckily no big issues - turning point came when neighbours had to follow her to Tesco just to make sure she was OK and then had to drive her car home - she only went for doughnuts! I'm a big fan of yearly retesting from 75 or so.

The miserable old cunt actually said to my wife about 3 weeks ago on the phone “if you try to stop me driving I will never speak to you again”. Prick.