Almost one-quarter of all American adults are nearsighted, and everyone over age 40 will have increasing difficulty reading fine print or seeing clearly in dim light.
Most people understand that age is the main reason for declines in eye health and vision, but there’s still a lot of confusion about other factors that help or hurt the eyes. Common myths…
Myth: Sitting too close to the TV hurts the eyes.
Reality: Generations of mothers have scolded their children for sitting too close to the television. This might have made sense in the 1940s, when TVs emitted fairly high levels of radiation, but it isn’t a factor anymore.
Today you could sit with your nose pressed against the screen, and it wouldn’t hurt your eyes. If you do watch TV up close, you might experience eyestrain because the eyes aren’t designed for prolonged, short-distance viewing. This may result in a headache, but apart from this, there aren’t any risks associated with up-close TV watching.
Myth: You’ll damage your eyes if you read in dim light.
Reality: Using your eyes, even under difficult viewing conditions, doesn’t hurt them. You won’t damage your vision by reading in dim light any more than you could hurt your ears by listening to quiet music, but you may develop eyestrain.
Myth: Computer monitors cause eye damage.
Reality: Computer monitors are no more likely than TVs to damage the eyes. However, people who spend a lot of time in front of the computer might experience an increase in eye dryness. People don’t blink normally when they’re engaged in prolonged, up-close focusing. When you’re working on the computer, you might blink less than once every 10 seconds. That’s not enough to lubricate the eyes. Infrequent blinking causes additional problems in older adults because their tear film is effective for only about seven or eight seconds between blinks — about half as long as in younger adults.
Recommended: During computer sessions, take an “eye break” at least once an hour. Shift your vision to something farther away, and consciously blink every few seconds. Use an over-the-counter natural teardrop to remoisturize your eyes. Good brands include Systane, Optive, Soothe XP and Refresh.
Myth: Using stronger reading glasses than you need weakens vision.
Reality: No, it is not true that using a stronger power than you need makes your eyes come to need that power. You can wear any power reading glasses that you want. You need to choose reading glasses based on the distance at which you work. You may want a stronger power for reading the newspaper than for working on the computer.
Myth: Redness means infection.
Reality: Eye infections are relatively infrequent compared with the cases of red eyes from noninfectious causes. Viral infections (which do not respond to antibiotics) occur somewhat more often but also are relatively uncommon.
Eye redness usually is due to simple irritation of the surface of the eye — from allergies or from dryness, for example, or from blepharitis, an inflammation of the eyelid, which also can cause dry eyes.
Self-test: The eye will be very red if you have an infection (bacterial or viral). With a bacterial infection, you might notice a thick yellow-white discharge. A viral infection is likely to have a clear, continuous watery discharge. Viral conjunctivitis (commonly called “pink eye”) results in a very irritated, very red eye, which often spreads to the other eye in one to three days. Typically, people with pink eye have had a cold recently or have been exposed to someone with pink eye.
Pink eye is very contagious and can quickly spread to family members and coworkers. To reduce the spread of infection, limit your contact with other people and wash hands frequently. Unlike bacterial conjunctivitis, which is treated with antibiotic eyedrops, there is no treatment for viral pink eye except lubricating eyedrops to reduce discomfort.
Myth: Extended-wear contacts are safe to keep in when you sleep.
Reality: The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has approved extended-wear contact lenses that you can keep in when you sleep, but I see a lot of patients with eye inflammation caused by these lenses.
The cornea, the transparent front of the eye, takes in oxygen all the time. Wearing a contact lens for extended periods reduces oxygen at the eye surface. Silicone hydrogen lenses allow much more oxygen to get to the cornea, but even they can cause irritation and infection when worn too long.
Always follow your doctor’s instructions. If your contact lenses are designed to be worn for two or four weeks, then change them at the recommended frequency. If you are wearing your contacts overnight and your eyes become irritated or red, stop wearing them and see your eye doctor. Generally, if you take your contacts out each night, there’s less risk for infection and irritation.
Irritation sometimes can be caused by multipurpose or cleaning solutions. Multipurpose solutions (Opti-Free, ReNu) include chemicals designed to kill bacteria, and some people become sensitive to these products. I recommend a product called Clear Care. The active ingredient, hydrogen peroxide, kills bacteria and other germs. Then, after six hours of soaking, the solution turns into saline.
For people who have trouble wearing contacts, one-day disposable lenses are another possibility. They are more expensive than the extended-wear lenses but don’t require disinfectant solutions.
There’s evidence that nutritional supplements can help eye patients who have already been diagnosed with age-related macular degeneration. A National Institutes of Health study found that patients with the disease who took a daily combination of beta-carotene (15 mg), vitamin C (500 mg), vitamin E (400 IU), zinc (80 mg) and copper (2 mg) were 25% less likely to progress to an advanced form of the disease.
This was an impressive finding, but there is no solid evidence that nutritional supplements prevent macular degeneration or other eye problems in healthy people.
Exception: Fish oil. Studies show that patients with mild-to-moderate eye dryness usually improve after taking oral supplements of fish oil. I advise patients to buy a product that contains both docosahexaenoic acid (DHA) and eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA) and follow the dosage instructions on the label.
