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

You're a towel

[cheezus]

People make assumptions about me because my eyes are constantly blood-shot

um, yeah... it's just monitor strain

i gotta remember that

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.

Are you generally healthy?

[stienman]

You may have eye problems because you aren't eating well, aren't fit or don't get enough sleep on a regular basis. My eyes are still recovering from a late night (20 hours awake) - it usually takes a few days. Also note that near the end of your twenties you will find your body doesn't heal from such activities as quickly. If you stay up for more than 16 to 20 hours at a time more than once a week I wouldn't expect you to ever recover.

But you are talking about two seperate (but related) things - eye strain, and dry eyes. There are two seperate remedies if you have taken care of health, fitness, and sleep. First, look away from the screen at a far away object for 30 seconds or more at least every 10-15 minutes. There are programs which cover the screen and force you to do so for periods of time. Second, make a program that flashes something large on your display every 10-30 seconds extremely briefly. Your eyes will instinctively blink, and you will not be distracted after getting used to it - much less distracting than a beep, or other stimulues, and uses your reflexes so you don't need to take your mind off what you're doing.

I find that reading and coding cause me to keep my eyes open for far longer than they should be. I would be surprised if you were actually blinking enough when you were trying to blink more frequently.

-Adam

Invert Your Colors

[Asicath]

Invert the color sceme that you use when coding. I use white text on black background, it takes a bit of getting used to, but the difference is well worth it.

My eyes used to spasm and all sorts of nasty crap before I did this. A monitor is basiclly a large lightbulb, when the screen is mostly white, they will light the whole room.

The only problem is that many sites use white as a background and look ugly if you force your own colors on them.

Re:Invert Your Colors

[FueledByRamen]

Such a device does exist; it's called an LCD panel. Flicker-free, and crisper than (most) CRTs. Not prohibitively expensive, either - I bought a Dell Ultrasharp 1900FP (19" at 1280x1024) for $650 a while back. Looks great (screen and the case around it) and refreshes fast enough for gaming, plus it does analog and digital in.

Another career threatened by dry eyes

[John Q. Public]

Just today, the SF Chronicle had a column on Rich Aurilia (baseball player) who is dealing with a similar issue and his hunt for a solution. Since he has far more cash for doctors than I do, his solutions may not match yours but they may help...

• (for those who don't click through)
• drops in his eyes
• two flaxseed oil tablets a day
• clear wraparound glasses, essentially protective goggles
• sealed off his tear ducts so that fluid wouldn't drain easily from his eyes

Sealing off the ducts seems like a radical solution to me. I can't imagine monkeying that much with my body just to avoid dry eyes.
---

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.

Some ideas

[dnight]

#1 Go Outside.

#2 Make a new friend; have a co-worker lick your eyeballs.

Seriously, though, a couple of vision breaks watching the birds every three-four hours, using lubricating eye drops occasionally will help a lot. It's what I do to solve the problem (I compound it with wearing contacts).

And having plugs stuck in your tear ducts sounds damn scary to me. Remember they're there before you get the MRI.

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.

Re:An ounce of prevention....

[n9hmg]

Well put, though incomplete.
It is rare that productivity actually benefits from a long wide-eyed zombie session. I mean... it does happen, when a large solution comes through and you are so excited to do it that you can't think of anything else anyway. Most of the time, you can keep working productively without your fingers on the keyboard and your eyes on the screen more than maybe 10% of the time.
Note: If your typing sucks, you'll get less rest time. One day, a friend came by my cube and looked over my shoulder. He apologied, explaining that he was annoyed by my "playing" with the keyboard, thinking that I was just drumming my fingers on the keys, but was surprised to see that it was all accurate text. He said I'd be dead silent for a couple of minutes, then maybe 20 seconds of a sort of "ripping" sound. Spend some time thinking between console sessions. I go maybe 10 minutes, then force myself to stand up. I either do a couple grass pickers, a pushup or two, or take a fastwalk lap around the office. Regardless, I do a few focus shifts - infinity to nosetip and back.
Here's an setup change for you, though... Get your monitor down as close to desk level as you can. It seems like everybody wants their monitors up high, but unless you're posing for an office products catalog, it forces you to open your eyes wide. That can be disastrous when you're "becoming one with" a screenful of code, and you forget that you're even made of meat. The less of your cornea that's exposed when you're an unblinking zombie, the closer exposed sections are to the wet edge of your eyelids, and capillary action has a fighting chance against evaporation.
Set up to have the monitor as far away as practicable. I gave up some density for range... 21" monitor, at only 1024x768. It's nice to get more info on the screen at one glance, but rarely necessary.

The best analogy I can give is to compare how you feel after crouching for an hour versus walking, standing, sitting, and laying down for 8 hours. Let your eyes move around, internally AND externally.
Oh, and don't plug your tear ducts. You make a place that stays warm and wet, without getting rinsed. Unless you're trying to grow bacteria in your tear ducts, that's not a good thing.

treating monitor-related eye strain...

[pb]

Lay off the porn!

No, really; we told you you'd go blind!

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.

Tube intensity and eye excercise

[Halvard]

I was worried about my eyesite for years. I stared at CRT's in crappy light and sometimes in blue light for hours on end. Let me tell you, staring at O'scope traces is hard on your eyes. On a submarine, most people wear glasses. I didn't and I think I know why: I turned the intensity down on the tube quite a ways but it was still bright enough to see easily. I also would focus on objects that were close and then immediately shift to ones that were far away (30-50' is a long way inside a welded shut sewer pipe).

Today, working sometimes 16 hours in front of a CRT, I do the same thing. I'm nearly 40 and have used computers and electronic devices now for 26 years solidly. My vision is still 20-20. Maybe I'm lucky but I think that it's do to good habits.

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.)

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[fluor2]

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