Slashdot Mirror
Contact Lenses for Computer Professionals?
LxDengar writes "For anyone who uses a computer around 10-plus hours a day, eye strain can become a serious issue. According to the American Optometric Association, 70-75% of computer workers experience eye and vision problems. Although I've tried contacts in the past, I found that my eyes dried out very quickly, and so switched back to glasses. Recently, my eye doctor mentioned a series of new contacts with better hydration for the eyes, and targeted to computer professionals (Acuvue, Ocular Sciences, etc). Do you wear contacts when staring at your screen for long periods? What contacts does community recommend for long periods at the computer?"
I have been wearing contact lenses for over 20 years now and have gone through gas permeable hard lenses, soft monthly lenses and most recently daily disposables. The dailies are great, I wear them from 7 in the morning until at least 10 pm and I work with computers all day long. Dailies are good because they are so thin but this does make them a bit fragile. However, if you are careful with them they can also be worn for a week per pair (I just use the normal soft lens peroxide cleaning systems that are available over the counter) and if a pair of lenses are getting a bit scappy I chuck them and open a fresh set. The companies that make these lenses would rather you wear the dailies, um, well, daily, but they are made from exactly the same materials as weeklies but I find the dailies much more comfortable because they are so thin. However, the dailies work out pretty expensive unless you clean and reuse them in which case they are very cost effective as well as the most comfortable lenses you can buy.
"I have the attention span of a strobe lit goldfish, please get to the point quickly!"
Staring at a screen reduces the blinking frequency. When blinking less often, the eyes dry faster. The lack of moisture is even worse when contact lenses are worn. Dry eyes irritate faster. Contact lenses accelerate the irritation and make it worse. And if you start rubbing your eyes on top of all that, then you are really in for some reaally nice inflammation... Do yourself a favor : don't go that way and keep wearing glasses.
I still use throwaway contacts, but only for outdoor activities of when I just want to go out with no glasses. I spend most of my waking hours in front of screens and then glasses are the best tool : they correct well, they are easy on the eyes and their field of view is bigger that the screens anyway.
Now let the Lasik flamewar begin.
Wavefront allows the surgeon to create custom LASIK procedures specific to your cornea, rather than using some standard pattern meant for your prescribed level of refraction. It usually generates a better result as far as clarity goes and results in less occurance of aberrations (LASIK induced astigmatism, for example).
IntraLase is a trade name for a laser system. Instead of using a blade to slice the cornea, the surgeon uses a femto-second laser to (rather slowly) open the cornea. It's a more precise cut and hence better. According to my doctor there is no tissue removal with IntraLase, as opposed to the microkeratome, which means if the laser makes an error (more likely the surgeon makes an error) you lose no corneal matter. There are also some horror stories where the microkeratome (the blade) actually will *jam* in the patients' *eye*. The extra $1500 that procedure tacked on to the total bill is WELL worth it to me to have a 0% chance of that type of problem happening.
Slashdot is proof that Sturgeon's Law applies to mankind.
Even people with "perfect" vision have problems with computer screens. The recommended solution is to take breaks and look at something far away every hour or more. Your eyes need exercise just like everything else.
"Why do my eyes hurt?"
"Because you have never used them."
Good luck in your quest for contact lenses. I'm lucky enough to only need mild corrective glasses at night.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
WaveFront is where they analyze for "more complex" distortion. Most glasses have two portions--the spherical (simple near-sightedness), and cylindrical (for basic astigmatism). Most contact lenses only do spherical--Toric lenses do cylindrical too.
However, there are more ways your vision can be distorted than spherical and cylindrical. The idea behind WaveFront is to analyse these other forms of astigmatism and include a correction for them, too.
You can also get expensive contacts with these corrective terms, & I'm told they work fairly well. Glasses are available too, but they don't work so well. The laser-eye-surgery versions work extremely well. An added bonus is that wavefront lasik tends to have much lower rates of night vision problems such as haloing.
Intralase replaces the first step of lasik. Usually first you cut a flap with a hand-held knife. Scary. Intralase uses a laser instead. Benefits are faster healing, less infection, less side-effects.
Do you mean floaters? Those aren't caused by laser surgery, as they are in the back portion of the eye. Everyone has them and has had them from birth, they are formed naturally during the development of the eye. Most likely you only now started noticing them because your surgery has caused you to pay more attention to all aspects of vision.
I have particularly annoying floaters, one is large enough to seriously interfere with my vision in one eye when it goes past, which made me give up driving. Unfortunately, there's no real cure short of draining the vitreus and replacing it with saline solution, a procedure done only in cases where blindness looms.
For those of you that aren't following, your olfactory senses are connected via the sinuses to your tear ducts (that produce mucous lube for your eyes), and they are related to taste.
Not only that, but you can taste the drop fluid as it comes into your sinuses. Yum.
Controversely, you can also blow air bubbles out of your tear ducts. Next time you're underwater, close your nose (and mouth) and blow really hard. You'll become airheaded underwater, and you may feel tiny air bubbles coming up. Wee.
Don't think that a small group of dedicated individuals can't change the world. It's the only thing that ever has.
Just don't use Bausch & Lomb MoistureLoc contact solution. It promotes fungal infections of the eye... eww.
LASIK creates a flap. This severs the nerves, which means your eyeballs can't tell your tear ducts to cry. Also the flap only rebonds on the edges, and not underneath, so the flap can be dislodged or wrinkled quite easily. This is a disadvantage for people who participate in contact or water sports, where the eye gets a pounding. The advantage of LASIK is that the recovery time is very short (couple of days) and relatively painless. This made it LASIK fashionable with film actors and high profile athletes for a while.
PRK removes the outer layer of eyeball skin before reshaping the cornea. The removed layer is very thin, compared to the lasik flap. The skin grows back, and there is no nerve damage. The integrity of the eye is much better, because the new skin is bonded completely to the eye. The disadvantage of PRK is that the healing time is longer (several weeks) and it can be very painful for the first few days, while the skin is regenerating. Of course, pain means the nerves are working properly, which is a good sign. Also, they will give you drugs and eyedrops (and eyedrops with drugs), to make you more comfortable.
Many doctors are now leaning back towards the older PRK procedure for these reasons.
FWIW, I'm having a PRK procedure done tomorrow afternoon (and I really wish I could have a beer right now).
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