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?"

Comments

Best solution?

[br4dh4x0r]

If at all possible, get LASIK.

I'd worn contacts for almost 20 years when I finally decided to pony up the cash for LASIK. Best $2000 I've ever spent. My eyes would dry out extremely quickly while wearing contacts. Since the inital recuperation from the surgery, my eyes haven't become dry unless I stay up 24+ hours in a row.

An added bonus is that my eyesight in each eye (20/650 and 20/850 before) is now 20/15. I could never come close to that with contacts.

I know you were asking about contact lenses... but you should at least consider LASIK.

Re:Best solution?

[toleraen]

Probably see my response further below...but to respond to yours:

Since the inital recuperation from the surgery

I had my Lasik surgery done January 2005. My eyes are still going through the "initial recuperation". For the first 9 months or so my eye sight would fluctuate, one day my right eye would be clear, the next my left. Now it's fairly steady, but they dry out much more frequently than yours do. My night vision is absolutely terrible compared to what it was, though it's getting better. I also noticed significantly more headaches. I get tons of little "floaty" things which mess with vision. On subsequent visits, I was told everything looks normal. Yes, I knew this stuff could happen going in. However, the dreams of not needing glasses, and being able to read something further than 3 inches from my nose took hold.

Lasik is not the holy grail it seems to be. I would not recommend this surgery to anyone, ever. Unless having messed up vision (and possible blindness!) is worth the convenience of not having to slide a pair of glasses on every morning.

Re:Best solution?

[jayhawk88]

Powers. He has them.

Re:Best solution?

[John Courtland]

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.

Re:Best solution?

[pcgc1xn]

$2K is a lot of coin. You can save some serious money by checking out www.lasikathome.com

Best money I ever spent. Just don't blink.

Re:Best solution?

[Sangui5]

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.

Re:Best solution?

[CRCulver]

I get tons of little "floaty" things which mess with vision.

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.

Re:Best solution?

[bergeron76]

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.

Re:Best solution?

[aquabat]

One might want to consider PRK as an alternative to LASIK.

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).

Daily disposables are great

[GreatDrok]

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.

Staring at screens and contact lenses don't mix

[BigJim.fr]

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.

Absolutely

[DingerX]

CRTs historically give you better color fidelity, but the brightness of LCDs means less eyestrain. Having worn RGPs for years, and switched between CRTs and LCDs, I can tell you that I can wear contacts with LCDs, but not CRTs.

and get some sleep already.

Take a break.

[twitter]

What contacts does community recommend for long periods at the computer?"

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.

forget corrective lenses altogether

[BHS_Turf]

Remove your lenses/glasses and press until you can read this post. It is not like you do any work anyway.

What's Wrong With Glasses?

[ObsessiveMathsFreak]

What exactly is wrong with glasses?

Bear with me for a minute. We're not in the fifties anymore. Glasses aren't 5cm bottlecaps anymore. Glasses are now light, flexible, sturdy, efficient and a danm sight cheaper than any contact lens on the market.

Is there really still such a problem with wearing glasses in this day and age? Grown geeks will walk around in public with thinkgeek apparell, pdas, glowsticks, sweatpants and gameboys. But not glasses because.... why?

Is it really the contacts you need?

Re:What's Wrong With Glasses?

[coyotecult]

Allergies force me to use glasses instead of contacts, and I really miss them.

Some of the advantages contact lenses have over glasses include:

1. When I'm out biking in the rain, I can still see. Raindrops quickly collect on my glasses and make it kind of difficult, if not downright dangerous, to see where I'm going.
2. I gain better peripheral vision. I have almost nil with glasses.
3. I'm not worried about breaking them; they don't snag on things.
4. I can see while I'm kissing without taking them off. Wire frames do tend to get in the way.

Don't cut corners with contacts

[keshet]

After 10 years of using contacts I contracted a severe corneal ulcer (see the gruesome pics on google) 1.5 months ago in my left eye. 8 days in hospital, I still cannot really see out of that eye and the doctor says that there is no way to know how much it will recover.

My mistakes?
- Using disposable contacts for longer than their design (GreatDrok you have been warned)
- Falling asleep in them
- Putting up with contacts which irritated my eyes because I'd already paid for them
- Not getting straight to an eye doctor when a mild infection suddenly got worse (it was on a weekend - I saw an incompetent GP who didn't think it was serious)

My best experience with contacts was when:
- I found a really good optometrist who took the time to find a type that really suited me
- I used straightforward saline IV solution for storing and rinsing
- I started the day with a physical workout (gets the juices flowing)
I could spend 10+ hours day in front of the computer and not be aware of the lenses in my eyes.

So, yes, I have gotten stupider over time. I actually had an appointment for LASIK 2 months before this happened but chickened out. Stoopid.

I'm in the opposite situation

[Samurai Cat!]

After staring at computer screens for about 25 years now (since I was 15 and had a TRS-80! har), I went from perfect vision to being somewhat nearsighted - my point-of-focus moved from wherever it was to where my computer screen sat.

I recently got contacts for the first time, for other reasons - but the only times I wear them is when I'm *not* working. My eyes are pretty much perfectly adjusted for staring at computer screens now, and nothing else. :P

Anyhow, I've got the Acuvue lenses from Johnson & Johnson, and so far, so good.

Don't be so goddam vain

[ynohoo]

One major advantage glasses have over contacts is that you can take the damn things off and give your eyes a rest!

Careful with contact solution

[TimboJones]

Just don't use Bausch & Lomb MoistureLoc contact solution. It promotes fungal infections of the eye... eww.

View from the Inside

[RedLeg]

My wife is an ophthalmic technician, and has worked for ophthalmic surgeons for 20 years. I had been wearing contacts (softs) for a couple of years before we hooked up.

She has seen, and I have heard the war stories, of all the myriad ways that soft lenses can go wrong. Based on that, and the rather strongly worded advice of one of her bosses in 1989, I switched to rigid gas permeable hard lenses, and have since upgraded to extended wear versions.

This is the best thing I have ever done with respect to my eyes. Since there is no fluid component to the lens, changes in humidity, gusts of air, dry eyes, etc., are no where near as big a deal.

They pass more Oxygen than ANY soft lens, and for this and many other reasons, are more healthy.

Unlike softlenses, if some "bug", fungal, bacterial, or whatever, gets into my eyes, the gas perms are not a medium for growth. The crap in the news about fungal growths associated with a particular B&L solution for softs are simply not an issue.

I wear my lenses 7x24. They are approved for 2 weeks of continuous wear. I have gone much longer with no issues.

They DO take a lot longer to get used to (weeks). Typically, they are harder for the practitioner to fit, more expensive, more uncomfortable until you are used to them, cost more per lens and per fitting session. An often overlooked benefit is that if (when) you get something foreign like dust, dirt or an eyelash in your eye, it is extraordinarily uncomfortable.... this typically causes the wearer to get lens out RIGHT NOW, and to deal with the comtamination. This is a good thing. As opposed to just tolerating it as a little uncomfortable, which is the norm for softs.

As far as Lasik goes.... well, what they don't tell you is a couple of things:

When it goes bad, it goes VERY bad. The options at that point are grim. it can get as bad as being legally blind.

Second, no one knows what the long term effects of lasic are. I plan to be alive for at least 50 more years, and there is no track record for this procedure anywhere near that long ago. Further, as we age, we ALL need cheaters or bifocals to deal with the fact that our eyes loose flexibility as we age. Lack of flexability translates into limited ability to change focus from close up to infinity. Lasic may set you free from your specs now, but you are still going to need cheaters or bifocals starting at around 40-45. FWIW, I keep several sets around... so you can guess my age....

Remember, these are your EYES. You only have two, and unless something changes radically, you can never get more. They can transplant hearts, kidneys, and lots of other things. Not eyes. Be conservative. Talk to a Doctor (not an optometrist) about hards. Find someone who specializes, not a refractive surgeon running a lasik mill. And finally, remember, we all are going to need cheaters when we get older.

Red

Cost-saving Lasik option

[mattbee]

I've heard a lot of people here talk about Lasik being the best option but if you're on a shoestring, you could consider the new LasikAtHome kit. Only $100, which is way cheaper than the $4000 you get charged for a "professional" job! Has anyone tried it?