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HeadachesA forty year-old patient presented to our office with no complaints. It is not uncommon to see patients whose only reason for coming in for their check-up was because their “wife made me come in,” and whose last eye exam was long ago. This patient happened to work all day at a computer, and while at first he offered no vision complaints, I soon came to learn that he gets headaches –every single work day. Headaches have many different causes, some neurological, or some related to allergies, dehydration, stress, or even posture. But one of the more common causes of headache can be vision or eye-related. After examining the patient’s eyes and vision, we saw that he was only slighted farsighted in the distance –this means that the patient had excellent distance vision and no need for visual correction far away. However, even a small amount of farsightedness, coupled with an occupation that involves staring up close at a screen all day, can contribute to eye strain, and ultimately headaches.

Computer Vision Syndrome refers to the host of eye-related problems that come with staring at the glowing rectangle of a screen (or several glowing rectangles!) all day at work. The human eye is generally designed to look far away. Correcting your distance vision, be it nearsightedness, farsightedness, and/or astigmatism will optimize your vision at distance, but will leave you with eyestrain as your ciliary muscle exerts a force on your internal lens (the “crystalline lens”) to adjust your focus.

Computer Vista Eye ArtWhen we are young, this focusing is oftentimes easier to accomplish. We have a greater amplitude of focus. When you see a kindergartner holding a book near their face, that working distance might be more comfortable for them then you (however, appreciate that if a child is holding things too close too their face they may be nearsighted –that’s why we recommend children be seen for their first eye exam before they turn one year old!). Adults can’t focus comfortably on things that are so close to them. The easiest method of assisting this focus is to simply supplement the power of the eye –that is, utilize a lens to focus on up-close objects instead of relying on your own eye power.

Dr. Brian Abert, O.D., FAAO likes explaining it to patients like this, “A lens has the physical property of having a focal length. It naturally focuses things at the distance corresponding to its power. Unlike your own eyes, a lens doesn’t get tired, or fatigued after a long day of near work. By wearing glasses specific to the task you’re performing, you are taking advantage of a passive optical system and alleviating your own focusing by that amount.”

Office LensesTo get back to the patient mentioned at the beginning of this story, we prescribed the perfect lens for the job –the Shamir Office lens. This lens is designed to alleviate the focusing issues that come with working continuously in a desk-type environment. The top portion of this style of lens provides the appropriate focus for the computer distance, and that power forms a gradient down to the appropriate focus for reading material. With the Office lens, the patient’s focus was relaxed and not only were his eyes feeling great, but his headaches had nearly completely been eliminated!

This story proves a point: our eye doctors recommend annual comprehensive eye and vision examinations for all of their patients. Sometimes vision and medical eye issues can be uncovered that otherwise would lay undiagnosed and untreated. For instance, why go to work every day and suffer tired eyes? If it has been a while since your last eye exam, please call or schedule your annual check-up with us. Maybe your exam will uncover only healthy eyes that require no treatment, but often times, we can help make your job and hobbies easier on your eyes.  Call us today at (303) 450-2020 to schedule your annual check-up, or click to link below to schedule online!

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