Posts Tagged ‘eye strain’

Kid’s Stuff

Saturday, May 21st, 2011

We all know that specs are a trendy accessory nowadays, and plenty of fashionistas even wear frames with clear lenses to complete their look. For children however, the stigma of being different can make life difficult if they suddenly have prescribed spectacles. While most kids happily embrace their new glasses, there are those who find it stressful or even totally traumatic to learn that they need visual correction.

Recent research showed that nearly twenty percent of children who need specs don’t wear them. So even if you send your child to school with their glasses, are they keeping them on? Short term this may lead to eye strain and headaches, long term it could affect their performance in all aspects of school life. If your child is under the age of eight you can help by allowing them to pick frames they enjoy wearing, shopping for a groovy spec case, and choosing thin, light weight lenses, and monitoring the fit of the glasses so they are always comfortable. Even if you feel upset that they need specs, never show it!!

Once they get to age eight, you could ask your Optician about contact lenses. This has been shown to improve children’s confidence at school, and have a positive effect on how they feel they look. It also improves their ability to fully take part in sports and other activities such as stage productions. If you and your child are motivated to wear lenses, then age is not a barrier to success. Parents have reported a remarkable change in children when they start wearing contact lenses – shy, reserved children are suddenly the bouncy and bubbly ones!

So if you are in doubt about your child, speak to your optician about you’re their suitability for contact lens wear. As our Optometrist said – “It’s clients like these that make our day. Seeing the grin on a child’s face when they see the world through contacts is a magic moment!”

Varifocal Glasses

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Back to Work Tips

Thursday, January 13th, 2011

Returning to our desks after the holidays, try to put some good practice into place to help you through the dark days of January!

We see lots of office workers suffering with dry, tired eyes, and eye strain after a hard day enslaved at their desks. Now that we all use computers in our home and work lives – as well as on the train, in the coffee shop etc etc! We’re using them for longer and longer periods each and every day. Problems with eye health or your sight are brought into sharper focus as the eyeballs show the strain. So can you help yourself, and what can we do to help you too?

Some problems can arise simply because of the hours we spend in front of our screens, whether on well lit i-pads, VDU screens or in the small print of a Blackberry. To help the eyes to cope with this you need to remember to do a little bit of eye exercise during your working day. It sounds obvious, but you do have to make the effort to blink often, as it’s easy to keep on staring at the screen and not blink. The action of the eyelids sweeping over the front of the eye re-wets the surface, which moistens the surface of the eye. This soothes, cleanses and refreshes it. You should also try to get into the habit of looking up into the distance, and away from the computer at regular intervals. This allows the eyes to change focus, which saves eye strain and at the end of the day you should feel less tired.

Our profession recommends an eye exam every two years, and if you use a computer for a significant part of the day your employer is obliged by law to pay for this. Check with HR – they may pay your usual optician or they may have a contract with a specified practice. The test will ensure that your eyes are healthy and that your prescription glasses are suitable for use at the VDU. If you need a prescription specifically for the computer your employer will pay for this too. Make sure you know your entitlement before you go for the test. You may also have the option of topping up your employer’s contribution for an upgraded option. When you know what you need and your employer has supplied your work pair, go online and make sure you have a spare, you can then keep one in your desk drawer and one at home. When you’re used to the VDU prescription you’ll be uncomfortable at the keyboard without it. Note that it can be helpful to tell the Optician your working distance – just sit in your usual position and measure from you to the screen. This can help to make sure you get the correct focal length.

If you do happen to need prescription glasses specifically for the computer, ask to have an anti-reflection coating on your lenses. This is the only thing that will help to reduce the effects of glare. It’s not like a tint and won’t darken the lenses, but it will reduce eye fatigue.

Varifocal Glasses

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Need to Know

Friday, June 18th, 2010

When we first tell people that they need to wear a visual correction – glasses or contact lenses – their first reaction, and their first question, is about when they need to wear their glasses. There are a few myths surrounding this issue, so here are the facts.

Wearing glasses, or not wearing your glasses, won’t alter your sight in the long term. There are some studies to suggest that’s children’s sight can be improved with specialist lens types, but at present there’s no evidence to suggest that your correction will actually make your sight better or worse. If you don’t wear them, in the short term you’ll suffer from eye strain as you try to focus. Squinting to thread a needle or read a book will be at best uncomfortable, at worst will leave you with a nasty headache. So don’t be afraid to wear your glasses! Listen to your Optician’s advice and wear them when you need them, especially if you’re illegal to drive without them!

If you’re under the age of forty, your eyes will do the work for you in focussing close too and far away. You only need one prescription for both. For most prescriptions you’ll be perfectly fine wearing your spex all the time. If you’re short sighted, as you get near to age forty, you’ll be more comfortable taking your specs off for close work. In this case not wearing your glasses will save eye strain. If you’re long sighted you’ll start to find that you need extra magnification for close work at this point.

After age forty-ish, you need help to focus close-up, regardless of what your sight was like before this point. So if you had no prescription before this, you’ll find yourself putting specs on and off when you need to read and then look up. You could have a varifocal with no power at the top of the lens, just your close and middle distance magnification. It’s fine to wear the varifocals all through the working day if it suits your lifestyle not to have to keep taking reading specs on and off.

Trust your optician and your own common sense when it comes to the best times to wear your glasses, and the important thing is don’t suffer in trying to cope without them.

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