Decreasing vision experiences

[portrgirl]

I know decreased vision is one of the symptoms of dry eyes. However, I was wondering about others' experiences with it.

I'm in my late twenties and ever since my dry eyes got so bad that I couldn't wear contacts (about 2.5 years ago), my vision seems to have reverted again. It was pretty stable in my early twenties at about -2.25. I went for my annual eye exam recently and they're at -3.5 now, which is down from the -2.75 they were last year at this time.

My optometrist said my eyes really should be stable by now and certainly not changing in such a big jump, so he recommended computer glasses before changing my glasses RX (1/2 my full RX power) as he thinks my eyes are stressed and tired from 7+ hours of computer work M-F. Has anyone had this help them?

Also, I've been slacking on using regular lubricating drops for the past year. Would this possibly be an additional cause to my worsening vision?

Or is it likely and possible that my eyes are still just changing and might continue to do so for years to come?

[jackolso]

Worsening Vision

I posted several times in the Triumphs section regarding my vision problems and the things I've done to solve them, including using Trufocals.

Dry eye generally causes vision problems that center on day to day focus issues as I described in my posts. However, everyone is different. There is no question that computer use, especially writing, reading long texts or spending time moving from website to website with varying test sizes, moving images and other distortions, causes a lot of eye strain which leads to dry eye and vision problems. A significant portion of my vision problems are related to computer use.

In my case, the computer is a work tool so I won't be giving it up any time soon. Now I wear progressives which only work for a couple of hours a day, so I've added the new glasses within the last week. They've been out about a year and half. I found out about the Trufocals 8 weeks ago when I read an article in the Wall Street Journal on innovation, so I ordered a pair. Unfortunately my astigmatism correction was wrong so I've had to have the right eye lens re-ground. Until I get it, I won't get the full benefits of the Trufocals. Even with the astigmatism diopter being off, they still help a lot.

Some people have multiple pairs of glasses. None of them have worked well for me over the last 3 years. That's why I'm experimenting with the Trufocals. Even with the astigmatism problem, they have increased my work time quite a bit and reduced my eye strain because the lenses in the glasses change rather than the lenses in my eye.

Having a separate pair of computer glasses helps some people but it's not a good solution because they are still single focus so as the strain and eye fatigue build during the day from watching the computer screen, the muscles in the eyes tire and bending the lenses becomes harder perpetuating the eye strain. Most people reduce their blink rate when looking at the computer screen which contributes to dry eye. In addition, most of the time our gaze is constantly shifting which means the eye muscles are moving also. When we look at a computer screen, it's a fixed distance so our muscles have to hold the focal length for long periods. This is what causes the eye strain. Subsequently, due to age and over use, the muscles lose some ability to bend the lenses, the lenses become stiffer due to dry eye and other problems, and that's when all of this starts.

My generation didn't have these problems until we hit middle age and up, but we also didn't use computers as kids. I expect my daughter to have eye issues ten to fifteen years sooner than I did because of the age she became dependent on computer use for writing, research and work. She'll also probably have hearing loss much sooner than my generation.

Long term eye strain can cause vision degrading if is frequent. I assume your eye doc checked you for other issues like cataracts.

Good luck with the computer glasses.