Treating Monitor-Related Eye Strain?

bergeron76 asks: "Like many of you, I look at CRT and LCD displays constantly when I'm at work and when I'm at home (and even when I'm in my car). As a result, I was wondering if any of you have any neat ideas or ways to help reduce eye strain and dryness while looking at displays continuously? I've tried vitamins, eye drops, increased blinking, and combinations of glasses / contacts with little success thus far. People make assumptions about me because my eyes are constantly blood-shot, and I'm wondering what I can do to heal my eyes? I recently heard about Punctum Plugs and was wondering if anyone has had any experience with them and if they're worth the cost. They're little plugs that reduce the size of your tear ducts so your eyes retain more fluid and stay 'lubed'. Does anyone have any experiences with these or have any other recommendations for reducing eye strain and dryness (aside from not computing)?"

Comments

Not meaning to be funny . . .

[MaxwellStreet]

As others have (less politely) said . . .

Try to find ways to spend less time looking at the screen. Really.

Draw UML on a whiteboard. Step outside for a minute or two every so often. Outline test cases on a piece of paper. Organize things on real to-do lists, instead of running your life off the screen.

(This advice has helped me avoid carpal tunnel, too - I got to the point where my wrists ached, and found ways to break up long bouts of typing. It helped quite a bit.)

Get your refresh rate on your monitor up as much as is reasonable - even the slightest flicker can cause trouble after a few intense hours.

Also, if you can, find a way to get rid of fluorescent lighting in your work area. It makes a big difference.

Do everything you can to break up those long bouts in front of a screen, even for short periods. Rest your eyes. Good luck.

Same problem here

[TheRoachMan]

I'm in the middle of my exams, and my studies require me to sit at a computer screen for 10 hours a day (or more). Perhaps compared to some of you that's not much, but I'm experiencing itchy eyes, and sometimes I rub them vigorously because I can't take the itch anymore, and the result is: blood-shot eyes as if I just downed 15 tequilas. I'll sure keep an eye out (sorry for the pun) for any good solutions and if I find any, I'll post them up.

So far the only thing I can think of is Teramycin (TerRamycin?), a very mild desinfectant, comes in the form of a clear liquid or, more known to the public, ointment. I often use it if I get blood-shot eyes from swimming (I'm very sensitive to chlorene). Haven't tried it yet this time, but I'm gonna give it a shot. I read you have already tried eye-drops, but since Teramycin is a more viscous, oily stuff, it might help to keep your eyes wet and lubricated better (sounds gross doesn't it?)

Perhaps in the US this medicine is called differently, try to google it and find an alternative name.

Dude you are not using the correct drops

[snoopdug]

Normal drops like visine have weird stuff in them like bascaline or something like that. Your eye will become immune to its effects. If you want to use drops, use Thera Tears or any that is simulated tears. Your eyes never get immune to real tears. Also, look away from your computer and focus on a far away object like a tree or a bird.

Re:Blink?

[Anonymous Coward]

I think he said he tried that.

What he doesn't say is what resolutions and scan rates he's using. Whether CRT's cause more or less of a problem. And why he has a CRT/LCD in his car, or how much time he spends in the car, I have a 5 minute drive, but if you spend hours in heavy traffic that's not good. I find driving more tiring than coding. If he's using an IDE, that I'd drive me nuts, I use a test editor with green text on a black background without any stupid context sensitive colouring. Try making you screen less noisy. Don't concentrate on the screen, look at the keyboard or something.

An underlying medical issue or not he clearly needs to change what he's doing or pick another line of work.

Re:Are you generally healthy?

[pmz]

You may have eye problems because you aren't eating well, aren't fit or don't get enough sleep on a regular basis.

Also, the author of the article didn't mention exactly the contacts/glasses combinations he/she tried. At one point several years ago, I had to go several days without contacts just to get my eyes back to normal. A couple years ago, I had to give up on contacts entirely after one especially irritating episode (I'm happy enough with glasses, anyway).

If contacts are the source of irritation, just trying something different for a day isn't necessarily going to make any difference. Sometimes three or more days is needed for healing to become noticible.

Humidity?

[StormForge]

Do you work in a dry place? Heated in winter and/or air conditioned in summer? Try a humidifier -- works well for me!

-Bill

An ounce of prevention....

[dacarr]

Simple answer: so don't do that!

My response is going to echo a lot of posters here for this question. These are things you can do while you're (say) writing code.

First and foremost, don't be afraid to take yourself away from the problem. Side effects: you can sometimes focus more on a problem when you distance yourself from it.

Second, fluorescent lighting will contribute to the problem. They are HORRIBLE for your eyes. If at all possible, use halogen - it's closer to the sun's lighting than even incandescent. Keep in mind that there is a latent flicker in fluorescent lighting that only becomes very obvious when the bulb or ballast starts to go bad. It will strain your eyes, and no polarized or UV protected lens will stop this. This is why people wind up doing the bifocals thing after years and years in office environments.

Third, don't be afraid to go outside into the big room. You know, that room outside the installation with the bright blue ceiling during the day, or buncha pinprick lights at night? It's good for you, and...well, see my last paragraph regarding halogen lighting.

Ergonomics

[KurdtX]

A few bits of ergonomics will help you out significantly (hopefully).

• Get a high quality monitor
  If you can't get one at work, at least have a good one at home. I went looking for a 19" monitor that could do 1600x1200 four years ago, and while I could have paid $450 (prices in USD), I instead opted for a $600 model (I used pricewatch for these prices). Why? Because any eye care and related discomfort to me wasn't worth $150. And the monitor really should be able to do at least 70Hz at the resolution you use, I can't tell you how many people I know who've had monitor-related headaches that were fixed by upping the refresh rate.
• Balance your color settings
  I've used Macs for a long time, which come with excellent color-balancing software. But PCs don't have this, and I'll often notice they present an image onscreen that is horribly out of whack. A lot of monitors allow you to adjust the strength of the color outputs, and I assume there's some software to do the same (try Adobe?). You shouldn't notice any adjustment in your eyes between looking at the monitor and the real world (such as if you putting on or taking off tinted glasses). That's not good for your eyes either.
• Don't sit too close to the monitor
  You're supposed to have your eyes 2 feet from the screen. I don't know anyone who actually does this, but most people are at least 1 foot away. If you're sitting closer, or finding that you often have to lean in to see things (such as small text), you should probably get a larger (physically) monitor, or run at a lower resolution (or, adjust the sizes of how all your fonts display). This will make a big difference, and you'll see results almost immediately.
• Align your monitor with your eyes
  Your eyes should be even with the top of the screen (not the bevel). Ok, this doesn't have to be precise, but if you are constantly looking down or up it's going to suck for not only your eyes, but your neck and back, too. It's easy to fix, too, mostly people have monitors that are too small, so they stack books or bricks or whatever underneath to raise it up.
• Eliminate glare
  Almost forgot this one. If you're getting too much glare from windows or overhead lights you're going to be squinting constantly while using your monitor. You probably don't even notice it, as (like all of these things) your eyes just adjust to it automatically and you don't notice until they're bloodshot or you've got headaches. But if you find that you're squinting, get a filter on your monitor, or buy one that has some sort of anti-relectivity technology built-in. Well worth it.

Ok, that's not going to solve everyone's problems, but it will help. And most of the adjustments you make once, and then forget about. Seriously, you really don't want to cheap out when buying a monitor. $50 more spent on a monitor is going to affect your life significantly more than $50 on any other part of the computer.

I just had laser surgery and

[xutopia]

My girlfriend and I got operated on recently. We found that we had way more problems than before with dry eyes and tried a few things. Here are tips to keep your eyes healthy :

• use a white board to write temporary stuff down so your eyes aren't in front of your monitor all day
• when you take time to think of your code look out a window or at the farthest possible distance you can in your office. Do this often. I mean very often.
• avoid greasy foods, alcohol and smocking. Any food that clogs up your liver makes your vision blurry (I'm not kidding. If I drink three Canadian beers one evening I've got blurred vision for two days, fat meals such as French scalloped potatoes do the same as well). As a rule of thumb anything poisonous (nicotine, alcohol, THC) is bad for your vision.
• use a black background for your code. I find it rests my eyes a lot more than a white one
• use halogen rather than neon lights and ask to sit by a window to get as much natural light as possible. If they ask you why show them your red eyes.
• put your monitor some place where there is no or little glare on it.

I hope people can find these solutions helpful.

See a good Optometrist/Opthamologist

[vitroth]

Four years ago I was having significant amounts of eye strain. I went to see an opthamologist who was highly recommended to me by someone who had previously experienced the same thing.

I told the opthamologist what I do for a living, and the problems I had been having. She gave me a very thorough exam, including some types of tests I'd never been given before.

She determined that I needed a little bit more power in my mid-range vision, i.e. the range at which a typical computer monitor will be from your eyes. She recommended a prescription with progressive lenses. (Thats the prescription terminology for lenses with invisible tri-focal features. The brand name for most such lenses is 'Varilux'). She prescribed lenses with a very slight amount of additional power in the mid-range focal area.

She also highly recommended anti-reflective coating on the lenses. (The brand name for the AR coating they use is 'Crizal', from the same company)

The bad news: It was the most expensive pair of glasses I had ever purchased. $400+ lenses (hefty prescription, "thin" progressive lenses, anti-reflective coating), plus $200 for Titanium frames that lasted four years.

The good news: No eye strain for the last four years. Despite the price, I was so happy with those glasses, that when they finally broke a few weeks ago, I went back to the same place and spent roughly the same amount for a new pair. But since the new glasses take about a week to arrive and my existing pair was dead, I also went to LensCrafters and got a "cheap" pair that same day. ($150) In the one week I wore those I had such bad headaches at work that I felt like I couldn't get much work done. (Plus, being LensCrafters frames & lenses, they basically feel like toy glasses. But at least I've got a spare pair to wear while playing racquetball.)

Saving Your Eyes

[bjb]

I wrote an everything node a while ago about this, but here is the text reproduced.

This is really targetted at Computer Users who complain about how their eyes hurt, especially after a long day of staring at the computer monitor.

I have had 15/20 vision all my life, and I've also been a heavy user of computers since 1979. People ask how the heck I have maintained my eyesight. It is really simple: turn the brightness down!

Here are my tips for adjusting your computer monitor:

• Display an image that contains a lot of BLACK, not grey, but black image. A perfect example is your boot loader, like lilo, if it doesn't have graphics. The black background should be black, not a shade of grey. If it is, turn down the brightness on your monitor. That is the dial that usually has a picture of a sun (or a circle with lines coming out from it).
• Now turn down the contrast all the way. That is the dial with the half-filled circle. Turn it up until you can read the text without straining.
• Now, if your monitor supports color temperature, adjust it to the 6000 or 6500 setting. This has a bit of a yellowish hue to the white, but you'll appreciate it later.

That's it. Note that if you are working on computer graphics, this will NOT make the colors bright and pretty, so you'll probably have to go back to the eye-killing settings. But if you're a coder who is just doing text and web browsing all day, USE THIS. Your eyes will thank you for it.

Even better: do the same thing I mentioned above, but with an LCD screen. CRT monitors are worse for your eyes than LCD.

If you're playing first person shooters like Quake, you will probably have to crank up the brightness dial. Just remember to turn it back down later!

Artificial tears

[Andy Dodd]

Agreed that Visine is evil.

The "generic" brands of artificial tears also suck.

Allergan's Refresh Tears, on the other hand, are amazing. Most of the generics have the same formula, but Refresh and Ciba's artificial tears (forget the exact name) each have unique formulas that are superior. I found that generics would cure dryness but blur my vision, Refresh doesn't.

FYI, if you have LASIK surgery, you will NOT be able to say no to eye drops for a few months. Refresh will be your best friend. (For the first week you'll be putting in the preservative-free form every 30 minutes, I guarantee you. It'll slow down over a period of months, I now only need my Refresh once in the morning after waking up and that's it except in rare cases, but I had issues with dry eyes in the morning to begin with.)