About the time I reached 40-years of age many of my peers began having trouble with their arms being too short or the print on newspapers being too small. Often it was both. I didn’t have the same problem but about 10 years ago I realized I couldn’t read highway signs that were blocks ahead. I went to an optometrist for an eye exam and he wrote me a prescription for eyeglasses. In the past 10 years I’ve seen an optometrist four times and each time the prescription had not changed.
Here’s the deal. If I break a pair of glasses that worked perfectly and it’s been more than a year since my eye exam, I am required to get an eye exam in order to replace my glasses. This happened to me once when my glasses fell between my car seat and broke when I adjusted the seat. Although my optometrist told me he didn’t expect my vision would change for 10 years, the law still requires me to have a valid prescription even if I’m only needing an extra pair of glasses. It varies by state. Some states allow prescriptions to be valid for longer than a year.