permanent eyestrain

re-opening old post so I can discuss the issue.

[athena]

I am reopening this post topic because I can add my own personal experience to this topic.

Absolutely, yes you can have permanent eye damange cause by excessive use. It happened to me. I lost my job of over 20 years because of it. I can barely watch T.V. or go on computer. I did all the "usual stuff they tell you to do, ergonomically and it still didn't help." My employer didn't allow the employees to rest their eyes, except for the regular schedule breaks. I've been to numerous specialist. Opthamologists, Neurologists. I've had cat scan's, Mri's, you name it. All these "specialists" claimed my eyes would go back to normal after I rested them for a while. I was off an on at work for a good couple of years and was eventually had to leave as I couldn't take the severe headaches. I used to love reading books and now I can barely read a headline in a newspaper.
The bottom line is that the experts themselves haven't bothered to investigated this problem in a great studies at all. They are only a few studies out there. I believe Japan was one of them.
If there are other people out there with a similar situation I would love to hear from you.

I wish to God I knew what would happen, but I made the mistake of listening to the "experts". I had left that job 2 years ago and the problem still hasn't gone away and I can't find any Doctor that will at least acknowledge that it can be permanent.

If you find your eyes, going like this, run don't walk, out of the profession of sitting in front of a computer all day before you end up like me...
because there is no turning the clock back.
A cautionary tale, but a true one...

[MrHard]

My eyes are fine, but I have noticed that my right wrist and hand that uses the mouse often feels weird, maybe like a slight tingling or just a sensation that I don't get in the left one.

I want to buy one of those wrist pillows they have and hope it helps. I have been hoping it does not get worse, but the thought has crossed my mind that it could at some point it could prevent me from working.

[tangor]

No disrespect to any, but mondo krap.

Eyes age, some get cataracts (me), some get glaucoma (smaller amount, but still significant). Computer Eyes, on the other hand, has been around since RADAR hit the biz...squints with little eye blinks (sans wind, sand, etc.) and here we are. Those are real and known.

Loss of sight ie "viewing screens" is more mondo krap (look at this screen, read this screen, your job depends on reading this screen, don't blink...).

Don't read this. Eyes will explode, or go dim, or unfocuse or ..0p098-09...m.p09ipo

[nomis5]

Don't know about the eyes but MrHard's reminded of a guy I knew who suffered from RSI in his wrist because of using a mouse. He ignored it and worked through the pain. Within two days he was walking worse than Quasimodo. It spread up his arm into his shoulder and then down his back. He was off work for four months.

Because of that I've learned to use the mouse with both hands, it spreads the load. It's easier than you might think.

[phranque]

welcome to WebmasterWorld [webmasterworld.com], athena!

is this the previous thread to which you are referring?

Eye Strain:
http://www.webmasterworld.com/forum10/6938.htm [webmasterworld.com]

[Sgt_Kickaxe]

If you don't get out of the office/house enough or you stay up really late working on your stuff a lot you get temporary issues too. Walk outside and look at the sky and scan back and forth... you may notice "junk" distortions moving too as if something is inside your eyes that shouldn't be. As long as you sleep enough they heal, when the healing takes longer or doesn't completely fix the problems it's time to slow down.

[httpwebwitch]

Coincidence! I was going to write a post about eye strain today, then found this post.

I've experienced temporary eye strain firsthand, repeatedly, and recently. Symptoms are varied, I've experienced two different kinds of symptoms, both confirmed to be symptoms of the same problem.

1) sudden, unexpected "fuzziness" of vision. This isn't like blurriness, it's more like you have white noise in your peripheral vision, and great difficulty seeing what is in front of you. If your eyes have been under strain, it can hit any time - not just when you're staring at a screen. Once I was struck with an episode while shopping at the mall, and I had to sit and rest because I couldn't see where I was going.

2) acute, severe eye strain reaction. This happened just last week; I was working on a huge PHP script and lost track of time - I think I'd been staring at the screen for 4 hours straight without a break (which is bad, btw). I was struck by acute loss of concentration, inability to think clearly, mild confusion. At first I thought I was having a stroke, but the typical symptoms of a stroke were absent. I was looking at a sentence I had typed 10 minutes before, and couldn't recognize that I created it. Then I'd read it again, and it would be unfamiliar again. I had no trouble with speech or comprehension, movement or vision. Just confusion and concentration. The symptoms lasted for about half an hour.

Strange that "eye strain" can have such a weird symptom that seems totally unrelated to eyes. But it's true.

One of the stressors recently is that I've been working on a Mac with an ENORMOUS super-bright LCD monitor. It's insanely bright, and because of my desk setup, I was sitting rather close to it. After that episode, I adjusted the position and turned down the brightness a lot, and I think it has made a difference.

These are the things that my optometrist suggested:

- VERY frequent eye breaks, like every five minutes. Use a timer if you need to (taskbar timers are common shareware). At each interval, look away from the screen for 20 seconds or more.

- Eye exercises. one he suggested is to focus on something very close, then something very far away, like out the window. close, far, close, far. back and forth. yeah, it does make your eyes feel tired doing it, but it also makes those funny little eye muscles stronger.

- comfortable lighting. Looking at your monitor should be as comfortable as reading a printed page held at arm's length. If your screen looks like a light source, turn it down, or turn up the ambient light.