I trust this community, my readers more than Quora or Yahoo! Answers. I trust that you’ll help me with this before I go to an eye doctor. First, a background on my eye history:
- I discovered I was nearsighted in the 3rd grade
- I wore glasses for one year (starting at -1.0 prescription in each eye)
- In 4th grade, I started wearing contacts because I couldn’t wear glasses during martial arts
- In 6th grade, my parents learned I was wearing contacts non-stop for 1-3 months at a time wtihout taking them out
- I started suffering from eye pain and an eye doctor said I shouldn’t wear contacts for a while due to damage to my eyes
- The damage was so severe that going back to contacts with the reduced oxygen getting to my eyes could lead to blindness over time
- Additionally, eye doctors have repeatedly told me that I should always wear sunglasses on sunny days. My eyes aren’t very thick and as I age, my eyesight may worsen due to sun damage
- Finally, my current prescription is negative 2.0 in one eye and negative 1.75 in the other
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The first time I was driving at night after not driving for a few years, I would go blind as cars passed by. This was in September and either my eyes have gotten better or I’ve only gotten used to it. There are still times when I’m driving down a road and someone has their brights on or there are no street lights that I have to nearly stop and pull over in fear of running off the road since I can’t see anything but headlights.
In the past 4 weeks, my eye sensitivity has become worse. I admit that my life is full of screens. A screen is my alarm clock (iPhone), a screen shows me the weather (iPad), I watch the morning news on my Sony LED TV and sit in front of a huge 30″ LCD display all day at work. I read from my iPad, tweet on an iPhone and write this post on my MacBook Air. Screens are my life. Even my Logitech Harmony Remote for my television has a 1.5″ backlit screen.
I recognize this as a problem that many people don’t think is one but I think as we all age, it’ll grow worse and worse. I think I’m only getting it now due to my constant use paired with already weak eyes.
Moving on, the past few weeks have been pretty bad. I started getting headaches (which I never get) and my eyes itch quite a bit and my only relief is closing my eyes for a few seconds and that does reduce the pain quite a bit. This evening I certainly took out the screen time a bit and tried reading which didn’t help and a few minutes of quiet breathing exercises and a stroll around the property was helpful but now that I’m back inside, the pain has started again.
I see a lot of medical talk on eye sensitivity and headaches but I’m not sure what really needs to be done. Do I wear those big sunglasses that old people wear and wear them all of the time (driving, computer time, watching TV)? Do I get some special contact lenses or should I just go for Lasik surgery? Do I have eye strain due to high resolution screens? What is it?
Anyway, I’m in pain and I don’t know if the pain gets worse, what I’ll end up doing. Needless to say, I’m calling an eye doctor tomorrow but if you have insight, I’d love some advice.
Hello Adam. As you may or may not know, I suffer greatly with light sensitivity related pain in my eyes. i might not be as tech savvy as you are but nonetheless, I have spent a huge part of my life in front of screens, just like you. Im just an regular end-user mind you but, since 5th grade, i didn’t really know what a note book was. It was all computers in school. So, needless to say.. my eyes hurt like a b*tch! Anyway… what I do for more immediate relief is cold water or a bag of ice over my eyes for about a minute. It helps with the “pain” part. For long term “maintenance” I like to use(whenever I remember) one of those protective glasses that have a yellow coating on them. Im wearing one right now. It helps A LOT with protecting my eyes from the light on the screen. Also, while at the subject of “screens”… I like to use larger fonts or at least zoom in on my screen whenever Im editing anything. Be that writing a draft, editing a photo, working on a video. .. anything that requires an extra amount of time. When it’s done I put everything as it was, quick an easy. This way it prevents me from from having my pupils dilated as I would need to focus on smaller characters, causing the iris to be exposed to unnecessary higher amounts of bright light from the screen. Anywho… don’t know if this will help you but it definitely helps me. Best of luck and talk to you soon.
Vic.
Hi Victor! Thanks! I’m going to pick up some glasses that take away from of the light a bit.
Can’t wait to see you in Fllorida next month.
The itching eyes sounds like you may have blephartis (dry eye). My eye doctor diagnosed it after I described the headaches and itchy eyes. He told me to use some brand of OTC eye drops daily (not Visine). Basically focusing on a screen along with the dryer weather in Winter time in colder climates causes your eyes to dry out. They won’t feel dry but he said they were. YMMV. Here’s one link to Blephartis: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmedhealth/PMH0002586
OcuSoft is what he recommended if you have blephartis. Systane Ultra were the eyedrops he recommeded on a daily basis (I get it here @ Target).
Don’t know if any of this will help. Just my 2¢ worth.
From what I have read if you are having problems with headlights @ night already LASIK will make it worse.
Thanks Steve. I’m still going to meet with a professional but will pick up some visine for now so I have relief.
Lasik has been on my mind for a while so I’ll have to bring up the light sensitivity if I ever get serious about getting it.
You act like -2.0 is something bad. I was probably that bad when I was an infant. Currently -9.0 and -8.0 diopters. Without correction, I’ve got a plane of about 1″ where I can actually see clearly, shrinking for no less than the presbyopia that I’m getting as I age.
I would suggest Systane just like Steve, it really sounds like your eyes are dry.
As far as a tech way of dealing with the issue, have you tried going with dark themes for all the screens that you use and can change, including the themes for Firefox like NASA Night launch (https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/nasa-night-launch/) and NASA Tabs (https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/nasa-tabs/)?
I’ve probably got more hours of screens on my eyes, but then I didn’t wear my contacts for months at a time! I think high resolution screens actually help, not hurt. You aren’t old enough to know what it’s like to stare at a TRS-80 Model I screen for 18+ hours, and then see everything enhanced in purple until you finally get 8 hours of sleep to get the CRT burn out of your eyes. I never had the issue with the amber Model 16 I worked on later.
I’m not sure that Lasik will “fix” any of it. You might even get more light sensitive. I would make sure I don’t leave anything out if I’m talking to a professional about getting it done. I’d also discuss it with the most experienced doctor doing it. Lasik Plus is cheap, but there’s a reason why they’re cheap!
As far as contacts, I know that there are some out there that allow more oxygen through than most. I had to give up my hard contacts over that fact, even though my vision was so far superior then. The tree 1/8 mile I could see from my bedroom was so clear that I could count the leaves on it. 20/10. It was 20/15 the first day I wore them.
Good luck!
What an AWESOME Comment! Thank you so much! I do use dark backgrounds and themes on my PC and when applications have dark mode I use that and it helps A LOT!
Looks like eye drops and a humidifier helped a lot but I have an eye doctor appointment.
Seriously, thanks for the great comment!!!!!!!
Keep the eye appointment!
I mean, let us know how the appointment works out.
:)