If you frequently experience eye strain, you aren’t alone.

Many more jobs involve computers than in the past, and you may even be stuck in front of yours all day long. If you’re here, you’ve no doubt already experienced some troubling symptoms. Eye strain can express itself as migraine headaches, light sensitivity and in a myriad of other ways.

Restoring your comfort at the computer is fortunately, quite easy. Except for the first one on our list, all of these helpful changes can be practiced right at your desk.

Keep your prescription up-to-date

If you haven’t had an eye exam in a while, you can schedule one here at our Kelowna optometry clinic.

Your prescription is one of the biggest factors in computer eye strain, even though you might assume they were completely unrelated. It’s true that a bad prescription doesn’t change the strain that you feel when looking at a screen, but that’s not the whole story. A bad prescription causes significant amounts of eye strain on its own, even before you ever sit down at your computer.

When you stress your eyes even more by adding screen strain onto that, you’re probably going to find yourself among the people experiencing the most problems overall.

Adjust your monitor settings to reduce strain

Your monitor settings can be adjusted to significantly reduce your eyestrain. Every monitor will have different options, so you may want to check with your IT department to determine which ones would be the most helpful. You can almost be sure that department has some tips on reducing eye strain. They may recommend one of the many small apps available that are designed to adjust settings automatically.

If you don’t want to get too technical, you should focus simply on whatever adjustments make it easier for you to read. More or less brightness, increased text sizes and adjusted colors can all make a big difference depending on what’s bothering you.

Take frequent breaks

As much as you can do to make your screen easier on the eyes, nothing is going to be as effective as simply stepping away from the computer. It need not be a long time, either. As long as it takes you to stand up and get a cup of coffee can be enough time for your eyes to relax and readjust. Try to take a break from looking at the screen every hour or so.

When breaks are difficult to schedule, use exercises instead

Not all jobs are friendly to a need for frequent walking. Many people can expect to be stuck at their station for most of the day. If that’s your situation, there are some ways that you can improve the situation without moving. Try these exercises:

           Simply close your eyes: That’s all you need to do. Just 20 seconds to one minute of closing your eyes can reduce the symptoms of eye strain. Even if you don’t feel any eye strain, closing your eyes for

            Gentle massage: While your eyes are closed, slowly and gently rub the area around your eyes. You’ll know you’re doing it right if you feel a growing relief.

Glasses are a great option, and there are many people out there who have proudly stuck by their specs for their entire lives. Glasses have a lot of great features after all, from the functionality of shading to the style of the frames.

If you’ve never considered contacts, there might be some advantages that you haven’t yet considered. Switching to contacts can open up some little pleasures that can’t be experienced if you’ve lived your life on the side of spectacles. The next time you’re thinking about getting a new prescription, consider if these advantages would make a difference.

Wake up seeing!

This is one of the first things you’ll notice upon switching if you’re willing to try the leave-in contacts. All glasses-wearers know that the first ritual of the day is to grope around groggily for their frames so that they can begin to see the rest of their world. It can be a pleasing and relieving experience to simply wake up being able to see perfectly.

Simple Prescription Adjustments

When you want to upgrade your glasses to change a prescription, it usually means tossing out one expensive pair for another one designed to last you for the next few years or so. Contacts, by contrast, are very simple to adjust. Usually, you’ll be paying a small price to receive them monthly, and you can update your prescriptions without interrupting your service or even necessarily changing the price. You can switch as often as your eye doctor recommends without being out the cost of new frames.

Enjoy New Orders, Constantly

Like your glasses? You may not like them as much as you used to. Maybe it’s the change of the seasons or the fact that the styles have changed, but glasses can get old before you can justify picking up new ones. That includes picking up minor imperfections like scratches on the lenses or bent wires. When you use contacts, you get brand new replacements by subscription. You’re always wearing a fresh pair.

Leave Your Eyes Open for Accessorizing

Many people are proud of their glasses, but there are times when the space they take up can be a frustration. Clip-ons and transition lenses for example, have compensated for the difference between glasses and sunglasses, but many still prefer to simply wear sunglasses and give up being able to see as well for a few hours.

Additionally, the rise of 3D movies has proven frustrating for people who already have that area of their face occupied. Some of these 3D glasses can fit over glasses, but it’s rarely an ideal or comfortable fit. Limitations like these are not a problem with contacts.

You’ll also open yourself up to some other new cosmetic options. Colored contact lenses, which are available on prescription, are a great way for you to forge a new “you”, with a radical change to your look.

Glasses can be a tough transition for any kid. If your child is not taking it well, help them out with these five tips:

1.     Give them a voice in choosing the frame

This is a vital first step. If you want your children to be comfortable with their glasses, you need to make sure that they have glasses that reinforce their identity instead of violating it. This should not be a problem if you choose an eye doctor with a great selection. There are many manufacturers who make frames designed to appeal to children.

2.     Guide them through new achievements

If your child has recently found themselves wearing glasses, there’s likely a reason why. You may have taken them to the eye doctor because you noticed that they had trouble paying attention in class or engaging in skill-based games with other children.

Now that you’ve corrected the problem, it’s important to help your child understand the value of their newfound sight. Encourage them to approach activities that used to be difficult with “fresh eyes”. They may find that they are more coordinated or quick to learn than they imagined they were.

When your child understands that glasses improve abilities, they’ll find it much easier to wear them with pride.

3.     Help them find bespectacled role models

Glasses can make children feel upset because they don’t associate glasses with the people they want to model themselves after. Fortunately, there are more real and fictional heroes who aren’t afraid of frames than there have ever been before. Depending on the age of your child, you may want to remind them that popular figures like Harry Potter and Clark Kent wear glasses.

Your children may have different tastes, but there’s no shortage of famous athletes, entertainers or great thinkers who have been seen sporting specs.

4.     Be firm about the transition

This step can be harder than the others, but it’s still very important. If you want your child to have a healthy transition, you need to make sure that they aren’t failing to adjust altogether. It’s important for your child’s health that glasses be worn often, and a spotty transition where the child rarely wears the glasses is just going to prolong any frustration or discomfort.

5.     Ask their teacher for help

Most children aren’t scared of being seen with glasses at home. It’s when they are surrounded by other children that they feel insecure. If you know that your child is having a problem transitioning to glasses, you’ll want to make sure that the teacher is aware.

Giving your child’s instructor a warning ahead of time will allow him or her to deal with it proactively. They can ease the transition by complimenting your child on the change, incorporating their new abilities and cutting teasing off at the source.

With Hallowe’en around the corner, many people tend to put on what are called ‘novelty contact lenses’ to spruce up their costumes. But before you decide to go above and beyond for your costume, these are the risks you should know about.

1. Whether you have vision problems or not, and whether you wear contact lenses or regular glasses, you should speak with your optometrist before purchasing novelty contacts. Even just wearing these once could potentially harm your eyes, so your optometrist will be able to give you a prescription to ensure they fit your eyes exactly right. Think Cinderella and the glass slipper.

2. Always buy your contact lenses (novelty or not) from a reputable and licensed dealer who holds Canadian credentials. If they don’t require a prescription, it’s a sign you might end up damaging your vision and permanently harming your eyes.

3. Just because they are novelty, doesn’t mean you shouldn’t take care of them like you would regular prescription contacts. Your optometrist will instruct you on how to clean and care of them as well as how to wear them so you don’t get an eye infection or worse, damage your vision.

4. It goes without saying, but we’ll say it anyway: don’t ever share your contact lenses, even the novelty ones, with anyone. It’s like sharing a toothbrush — you wouldn’t do that, would you? The same idea applies. Your contacts, just like your toothbrush, can easily spread bacteria and other problems that you just don’t want to have to deal with.

5. And just like everything else, if it doesn’t feel right, and you have some discomfort, speak with your optometrist and let them know. Anything from red eyes, pain, swelling  can lead to more serious issues, so let your vision specialist know right away.

New Law In Canada

Novelty contact lenses aren’t just popular during hallowe’en, but all year-long. And they’re not just known as novelty lenses, but also cosmetic. They include traditional “creepy” looking lenses like white or red eyes, and other crazy things like cat eyes, all black, etc. But they also can be the contacts that simply change your iris colour. So if you have brown eyes, you can suddenly have blue or green eyes, etc. These are more commonly referred to as cosmetic contact lenses. But because these cosmetic and/or novelty lenses are considered consumer products, and not to correct vision, they can be sold anywhere, including costume shops and dollar stores. And they can be very dangerous.

Because of the dangers associated with purchasing “lenses” from a non-licensed vision-care specialist, such as corneal infections and permanent vision problems, the Canadian Government has passed new laws to govern these so-called ‘novelty’ contact lenses. These laws include having more stringent controls and regulations around safety, quality and labelling, just as regular contacts would have. However, because this is a new law, the government is allowing manufacturers enough time to be able to tweak their lenses to adapt to the new guidelines and as such, the new law won’t come into effect until July 2016. This means, you still need to be careful and speak with an optometrist if you want to wear these for this year’s hallowe’en.

Who hasn’t accidentally sat on their glasses? Put a book on top of their glasses? Dropped their glasses? However the method, most of us have, at some point in time, broken our glasses. Worst feeling ever, am I right?

Well, if you are stuck somewhere and need a quick fix or can’t get to your optometrist to get them properly fixed, here are a few temporary solutions. Remember, to ensure you don’t further damage your glasses or lenses, visit your optometrist as soon as possible for a proper fix-it job.

To Mend A Bridge

The bridge of your glasses is the small part that goes over your nose. It can be quite easy to break that part. We’ve all seen the “Pointdexter” glasses with the tape over the bridge of his glasses. Here’s how you can fix it with nothing but white glue (NOT Krazy Glue), scissors and a magazine.

First, clean the frame to make sure there’s no lint or debris. Next, tear a page from the magazine and cut up strips the same thickness as the bridge of your glasses. Start to glue one strip of paper overtop the bridge, and then keep layering with several more pieces of the paper. Finally, put one last coat of glue on top of all the layers.

The glue will harden and all the layers will help reinforce the bridge until it can get properly fixed.

Dislocated Arms

The arms of your glasses, the part that goes over and behind your ears, can sometimes become unscrewed to the body of the glasses. If you aren’t able to replace the screw, here’s a quick fix-it tip with a pair of tweezers and a twist tie (like the kind you use in the grocery store to tie your vegetable bags).

With the tweezers, remove any leftover pieces of the screws that might still be stuck in the frame’s hole. Also with the tweezers, carefully remove the paper from the twist tie so all you have left is the thin metal. Then, just like you were threading a needle, slowly insert the metal through the screw hole and then loop it around the arm of the eyeglasses. Twist the metal wire together so that it locks in place, and your glasses can be worn again until you can get a replacement screw.

Two Fixes To Avoid

Under no circumstances ever use super glue (like Krazy Glue) to fix any part of your glasses as this will inevitably leave a residue and will make it harder for your optometrist to fix your glasses and clean up your mess afterwards. Also, it’s best not to use those scratch repair kits since they actually damage your lenses in the long-run, and thereby damage your vision as well.