Eye Strain vs. Performance Digital Eyewear

Small world... I had a mucocele in 1991, and it recurred in 1992. I've never actually talked to anyone who has had that same problem. My left eye was 0.25" out of socket. Lucky you with the up the nose endoscopic, I was not so lucky. I had my surgeries at MD Anderson cancer center in Houston, and involved going in through my mouth along the gums and basically peeling my face back to get to the sinus cavity. It was a long, painful, and nasty recovery. 6 feet of gauze shoved up my nose to soak up the blood, then removed on a daily basis... with the dried blood it felt like razor wire being pulled out of my nose.

I have had my eyes checked about a month ago and required new lenses in my glasses. I am nearsighted, so I do not wear glasses at the computer. My left eye is much less near sighted than my right though. So I only have sight problems when I try to focus at a distance without my corrective lenses. As I said though, the symptoms only come up at the computer, reading books and such does not trigger the problem.

Yeah, I've had other sinus ops on the left side of my head which weren't so quick & easy, the up under the lip job after I'd had orbital celulitis which was bought on by sinusitis many years ago. Those ops are real fun aren't they.

I try and keep it at bay these days by snorting hot salty water at the slightest sign of stuffiness.

Del

I know how you feel. I use a mixture of warm water, salt, and baking soda. A head and neck specialist I had been to years ago recommended the baking soda in the mix, though now I do not recall why. I have not had too many sinus problems in the last 5 years or so. A doctor put me on these steroidal shots of kenalog and depomedrol every 3 months or so and it tends to keep my sinuses nice and open without the sinusitus problems.

I have never heard of these glasses, they look like filters that might only change the color temperature which you can do without them.

Has your monitor at work changed, or were the settings on it changed in the last several months?

When our company upgraded everyone to LCD monitors at first it was driving my eyes crazy. Then I started playing with the settings such as brightness, color temperature and refresh rate.

I found that adjusting some of these settings make a huge difference on eye strain. Most adjustments don't make a big perceptible difference but after a minute or two you can tell if its better or worse.

Try to increase the refresh rate as hi as possible (a setting on the computer) and adjust the color temperature to something warmer and see what difference it makes.

No changes with the exception of even more time than normal spent in front of a monitor. I have tried having my office lights off/on, background lighting off/on, one thing that worked was turning my monitor brightness way down, which helps. For instance, if I'm looking at pdf files or word documents, the white background can just be painful at times. Maybe like a snow blindness?

Yes I am spending more time at the pc, but I suppose it is only to be expected with a shrinking workforce and the work load shifting to the rest of us.

Great idea on the time out and a GA for you. More often than not, I lose track of how much time I have spent editing a document until the headaches start which is too late. I think I may go with a super high tech.... umm.. egg timer though. I have spent some time today making some adjustments in my office. I added some soft white ambient lighting behind me, turned the obnoxious flourescent overheads off, and adjusted the Red, Blue, Green settings on my monitor for a softer look. The difference is already apparent.

Don't joke about the egg timer! I am self-employed and honestly, if I didn't use my egg timer I would be in a lot of trouble..

Tweaking light and color in the room and onscreen is a good idea. It's always the "too much white light" thing that comes before a headache IMO. Actually my eyes are very light sensitive and I am sunglasses-dependent when outdoors

Sounds like we have similar problems lol. A DELL Ultrasharp monitor I suppose by default has the settings maxed out. A new document (blank) in word is like staring at the sun! (sure a little exagerated but so what). Toning down the colors made a big difference in softening the white.

I would like to get some prescription sunglasses one day, but the optomotrists require removal of both arms and one leg in payment. I am not too keen on contacts (the idea of putting anything in my eyes creeps me out), so no cheap sunglasses to me if I still want to be able to see!

Yeh the computer screen is a blast of light alright. On stormy winter days I huddle over it, can't resist the attraction. Mostly it's too bright though. I changed my screensaver recently to a very dark sunset and that helps if the windows are small, but not when they fill up the screen. I don't know how the brightness is adjusted but I think I'll find out. Also maybe try some muted shade instead of white as a document background...

When I finally got glasses two years ago for detail work and fine print, I got a pair of classy sunglasses in the bargain, just plain no prescription because I didn't want it, but all the optometrists here have a "buy one pair, get a second free" thing, here. It's a shame if you have to go without the prescription sunglasses.

In response to both the glasses and the suggestion to getting your eyes checked.

When you are in getting your eyes checked ask you Optometrist about the special film or coating that can be applied to your lenses. They do have a special something that is specifically designed for people who use their computers alot.

My mother in law has a job that keeps her at her desk for 8 hours a day to input info on the computer. She also had the same headache problem. The special lense coating helped her. Also the timeouts as suggested above made a difference.

You only get one pair of eyes gotta make em last.

You only get one pair of eyes gotta make em last.
Yeah, bummer, I get 9 lives...but only the one set of equipment
Del

Good suggestion. Currently I have crizal lenses with anit-reflective coating.

Try this timer on for size...there are quite a few more out there if you poke around some....http://www.pc-tools.net/win32/mintimer/

Follow Del's suggestion to get a vision exam, which may reveal all sorts of reasons for your eye strain and resulting headaches. Possibilities are that you may have astigmatism and/or nearsightedness/farsightedness, which may be at an imbalance between the two eyes. There may be a postural difference between the eyes (as in Del's case), for no apparent medical reason, but none-the-less needing correction - easily handled by wearing compensating prism correction in glasses.

I came close to flunking out of college, due to needing glasses and not having them, suffering daily eyestrain and headaches. Once I started to wear corrective lenses... no more eyestrain or headaches. Went from C/D to A/B in one testing period, 'cause I was then able to study comfortably.

As far as investing in the advertised glasses - Gunnar ST004-C013 Attache Metropole Earth Digital Performance Eyewear w/ i-AMP Lens Technology - don't fall for the ploy. They provide no consideration for what I have described in the first paragraph, and probably work only on Mars for eyes that are already optically perfect.

Good luck - from a retired optometrist.

You are spot on with the nearsightedness/farsightedness. I am near sided in both eyes, but very mildly in my left eye, and much more severly in my right eye. If I take off my glasses and try to focus on something in the distance it can cause vertigo like effects sometimes. Because I am sitting in front of a monitor that is about 14" away from my face, I always try to remember not to wear my glasses, as I do not want my eyes to be weakened by using corrective lenses for reading and such at close range when they are not necessary.

What do you mean by prism correcting glasses (no, I did not google it yet )? Does this mean color correction or filtering?

You are spot on with the nearsightedness/farsightedness. I am near sided in both eyes, but very mildly in my left eye, and much more severly in my right eye. If I take off my glasses and try to focus on something in the distance it can cause vertigo like effects sometimes. Because I am sitting in front of a monitor that is about 14" away from my face, I always try to remember not to wear my glasses, as I do not want my eyes to be weakened by using corrective lenses for reading and such at close range when they are not necessary.

If corrective lenses are appropriate for a given distance, then worry about weakening your eyes by wearing them is unfounded. Corrective lenses effectively work to balance and compensate eyes that are overpowered (nearsighted) or underpowered (farsighted - actually, a misnomer), and/or having astigmatism (warped optics). Think about corrective lenses as being compensatory tools, much the same as wearing a thicker sole on one shoe, if that leg is shorter than the other. The leg doesn't get weaker, as a result of wearing the thicker sole.

What do you mean by prism correcting glasses (no, I did not google it yet )? Does this mean color correction or filtering?

Prism correction does not relate to either color or filtering, but rather to image displacement. The prism correction element is ground into lenses to compensate for eyes whose visual axes do not align. If you will consider eyes that do not line up while looking at the same object... on some persons it is obvious, because one eye may look way off to the side, while the other one is looking at the object of regard. Prism correction is not effective on large variations between the two eyes, but when the deviation is small, prisms can be effectively employed, thus eliminating eye strain, and often, headaches. Hope this helps your understanding of the situation. If not, please let me know.

Talking of prism, and double vision (diplopia)
There's an easy d.i.y test for vertical problems
Sit at a desk with a sheet of paper on it, get a large book A4 or A3 and rest it vertically on the paper with the top edge along your nose/between your eyes, this separates the vision from each eye.
Draw a short horizontal line on the paper to the left of the book (so that it touches the book), repeat this on the right side.
When you remove the book the two lines should line up.
When by diplopia was at it'e worst there was about an inch shift between the lines!!!
Yet first thing in the morning it would be ok before the muscles tired with pulling in the huge error.

Go on, try it, you know you want to.
Del

That was a fun little test. The lines match up, though the one on the left tends to be a little more squiggly . The test results were the same both with and without my glasses, which is what I would expect being that I do not need corrective lenses for seeing up close.

Greetings, Del,

I like your method to identify diplopia, but have another way of doing it.

To investigate diplopia I would just use a cover - a hand works - and alternately cover first one eye, then the other, while fixating at a distant object (like the corner of the mirror across the room). Noting any kind of apparent jump of the object of regard, indicates diplopia. If a vertical or diagonal movement is seen, that would denote a vertical component to the diplopia. If movement is seen as just side to side (back and forth), it shows only horizontal diplopia .

Yup that works as a good check.
I was using my method to estimate the amount of prism needed to try and explain to the first optometrist (who was a thick arrogant Scot, who didn't listen & prescribed glasses that were no good at all, so I demanded to see someone else...)
The 2nd one was an older lady...brilliant...she actually listened to my sympoms and refered me to the hospital ASAP.
Del

"If corrective lenses are appropriate for a given distance, then worry about weakening your eyes by wearing them is unfounded."

Thanks for the feedback! I suppose I had it all wrong then. My thinking was that, while my vision is absolutely fine for seeing at close range distances, there is no need to be wearing my glasses; and wearing my glasses which compensate for seeing at longer distances while viewing something at close range may somehow deteriorate vision overtime, ie. the muscles of the eyes getting in a state of atrophy because of the assisted and unneccessary compensation from the glasses. But, if the lenses have absolutely no impact in my short range vision, then my theory would be completely wrong.

BTW, I have not had any headaches after making the several lighting adjustments here.

Glad to hear the adjusted light is working for you.

I sort of wonder about the idea that glasses don't weaken your eyes if used when unnecessary. Now that I use glasses for work, I've gotten used to them, so my eyes usually adjust quickly after I set them aside. But on at least one occasion I made the mistake of wearing them in front of the computer. When I took them off, I was pretty much blind. Unable to read the screen for more than five minutes afterwards, like my eyes are stuck on "blurry" and are not responding and adjusting as normally....

Also if glasses don't affect your eyes by something like muscle atrophy as you suggested Vandarye, why do people always need stronger glasses as time goes by? they sure are not stopping your vision from deteriorating... I am in doubt..

That is my point about wearing the glasses when it is not necessary. If I wear my glasses in front of the computer, or reading a book, etc. my eyes are very slow to adjust/focus after the fact. My theory is that the assistance from the corrective lenses makes the eyes lazy. My optometrist told me never to wear them when they are not necessary, and gave me some exercises to perform on a daily basis. For example, one test is to focus on a point in your near vision, then immediately switch focus to an object in the back ground, and do this back and forth several times with no glasses in order to strengthen the eyes for faster focusing.

That's good to know: thanks. If the optometrist acknowledges the issue and recommends exercises, well that fits my feelings and perception of it exactly.

Vandarye, please see post 28.

Also if glasses don't affect your eyes by something like muscle atrophy as you suggested Vandarye, why do people always need stronger glasses as time goes by? they sure are not stopping your vision from deteriorating... I am in doubt..

One needs to consider a few things, regarding what eyes do and how they react to different demands. When we all were much younger, and wore corrective lenses (or not), our eyes would focus properly at distance and near without a thought. However, once we hit our 40's, most of us noticed that it became a bit more difficult to focus up close (when wearing our distance-correcting lenses). This happens due to the stiffening of the internal lens of the eye. It is an unwitting trade-off that we have made with mother nature. She gives us an internal-focusing lens, but it starts to get stiff at mid-life, so we then require reading glasses to compensate for the lens that no longer responds to close-up needs. This is why, under certain circumstances, distant vision is temporarily blurred after extended periods of reading, etc., because the internal lens still has a tiny bit of flex left, but responds slowly to changing focus from near to far and far to near.

Also, people may need to change prescription strength in their glasses, as time goes by, because eyes are more like hard boiled eggs out of the shell than bricks... meaning that since eyes are rather soft physiological organs, they are influenced by many variables, which may have an effect on eye power. Even blood sugar levels, as in diabetes, can result in prescriptive changes.

I would like to offer additional info, but at present my new knee is giving me almost intolerable discomfort, so it's hard for me to think. Will post again when feeling better.