> On or about 30 Nov 2006 23:19:08 -0800 did "bats" <cindieh[at]gmail.com> dribble thusly:
> > Reading through all of your answers suddenly make me think.. why do I
> > need a computer glasses when I can view the monitor clearly?
> > > And Dr Judy, Yes, my computer monitor is clear even without glasses.
> > That means, I do not need any glasses, do I? Reason why I started this
> > topic is, I went to an optical shop and that person there told me that
> > I should get a computer glasses since I face computer all the time. In
> The idea, no doubt, was to help you reduce eye strain.
> Unless your degree of myopia coincidentally places your relaxed focal
> plane (i.e. with your focusing muscles relaxed) at the same distance
> as your monitor, your eyes will be doing work to let you focus
> properly.
> After you hit 40, if you still spend a lot of time in front of a
> monitor, you may find computer glasses a necessity, due to presbyopia.
....
> You'll need to measure the distance to your monitor, and either
> experiment with various pairs at the store, or do some calculations
> beforehand to determine what power you should use.

> John H. wrote:
> > The symptoms you report are similiar to mine but appear more severe.
> > I'm exotropic, read a a great deal but over the last several years my
> > vision has fluctuated so wildly, even in the space of 10 minutes, that
> > it drives me crazy with frustration. I've seen several specialists and
> > they cannot offer anything except to suggest it is neurologic; though
> > like yourself I suspect my problem is compounded by slight corneal
> > distortions. Sustained reading also makes me pseudo myopic, just to
> > complicate the picture. What I am doing now is wearing an eye patch
> > over the exotropic eye during reading but I'm not sure it is having any
> > benefit. I started doing this because like yourself I am of the opinion
> > that visual processing system is being overwhelmed by the ongoing
> > stress. My situation is compounded by having optic nerve damage.
> John,
> A couple of questions:
> - how old are you?

> - what's your prescription

> - just how exotropic are you?

> - have you had vision therapy, strabismus surgery, or prisms
> prescribed? Did it/they help?

> - do you have a vertical deviation (i.e., hyper/hypotropia), too?

> - what sort of corneal distortions? Keratoconus?

> - do you wear contacts (RGPs can benefit some people with distorted
> corneas), glasses, or neither?

> > Aint it a bummer,
> Yeah. On a =good= day ;-)

> The symptoms you report are similiar to mine but appear more severe.
> I'm exotropic, read a a great deal but over the last several years my
> vision has fluctuated so wildly, even in the space of 10 minutes, that
> it drives me crazy with frustration. I've seen several specialists and
> they cannot offer anything except to suggest it is neurologic; though
> like yourself I suspect my problem is compounded by slight corneal
> distortions. Sustained reading also makes me pseudo myopic, just to
> complicate the picture. What I am doing now is wearing an eye patch
> over the exotropic eye during reading but I'm not sure it is having any
> benefit. I started doing this because like yourself I am of the opinion
> that visual processing system is being overwhelmed by the ongoing
> stress. My situation is compounded by having optic nerve damage.

> Aint it a bummer,

> > Ann wrote:
> > > What an odd question. If you can see the computer screen clearly then
> > > why would you bother to get glasses? If you can't then you know you
> > > need them.
> William Stacy replied:
> > Your "advice" strikes me as odd. Odd in that you are deciding whether
> > someone can benefit from computer glasses without even knowing what the
> > refraction is, what the binocularity status is, what the accommodative
> > response is. It's like saying, in another context, if you feel fine,
> > why should you take any blood pressure or cholesterol meds? Very odd.
> I want to agree with Bill, and even amplify on it just a touch.
> My situation is fairly well known around here. These days, I'm
> exotropic (my eyes turn out), but you might not notice it to look at
> me. That's because my brain/visual system is expending significant
> energy to overcome this misalignment on its own (using accommodative
> and vergence amplitudes).
> I'm also quite farsighted and have real problems with accommodation
> (and recently acquired ocular surface disorders). So when I tell
> people that "I can't read," there's no understanding of what I could
> possibly mean.
> What I MEAN is: while I can physically read, it causes significant
> fatigue, dizziness, pain, and nausea and--if I don't stop in a very few
> minutes--it "locks up" my accommodative system, altering the alignment
> of my eyes AND making me "pseudomyopic--" artificially nearsighted.
> Case in point: spent five hours helping rearrange a storage space
> yesterday (my whole world was at a distance of less than a few feet for
> the entire time). By the time we were finished, I was too
> "nearsighted" to drive my car home.
> So ... I think Bill Stacy is ab-so-lute-ly right on the money: just
> because a visual task CAN be accomplished by a person does not mean
> that there isn't an underlying problem that might dramatically benefit
> from an optometric (or other) intervention.
> Neil

> Dear Group,
> Judy> Wearing glasses for distance or computer will not make your eye
> lazy or
> worse.
> Otis> I believe that this poster's question was whether wearing
> a mild plus, say +1.5 diopters would have any effect on
> her eyes.

> Otis> What you are saying here is that wearing a mild plus
> for the computer has no effect on the eye at all.

> she could get a over-the-counter plus (sold with no restrictions),
> try it out, and, if she likes the "reduced accommodation effort",
> then use it at her own discretion. There is no harm
> to wearing a mild plus since it has no effect on the
> refractive STATE of any eye.

> On 11/30/06 11:19 PM, in article
> 1164957548.653333.20070[at]l12g2000cwl.googlegroups.com, "bats"
> <cindieh[at]gmail.com> wrote:
> > I'm 25 years old, if that helps. I can view my computer monitor
> > clearly. I have slight astigmatism (-0.50) and -0.75 of
> > shortsightedness. I hope that figures help. I don't really know what
> > that figures mean, though. And do I need one computer glasses?
> I first point out that I am not a health professional and get no income that
> way. My background is in physics and optics in particular.
> You are young enough so that you can still become more myopic. At this time,
> you have sufficient accommodation so that you do not need need glasses to
> see your screen clearly enough. Nevertheless, you do use that accommodative
> power to see the screen clearly. If you do not want to use your
> accommodative muscles, my guess is that reading glasses with a power
> somewhere between 1.00 to 1.50 diopters would help. I have used some thatI
> bought for about $1 at swap meets or at 99¢ stores. They are perfectly
> adequate. At that price I have a range.
> It would help if you told us the distance from your eye to the screen. You
> can use Gauss's lens law to determine how much extra power is needed to be
> added to your +0.75D of focusing power so that you do not need to use
> accommodation to focus clearly on the screen.
> Although I do not wish to open an old wound on this newsgroup, many readers
> and posters think that using such glasses will prevent your myopia from
> getting worse. This runs against the religion for most of the health
> professional posters here. I personally disagree with the health
> professionals. I go along with Otis on this point. I do not see how properly
> sized reading glasses can hurt. They may actually supply a benefit.
> Bill
> There are reader
> -- Fermez le Bush

> Dear Group,

> bats wrote:
> > > > > > > If I do need to wear computer glasses, that means I only wear them when
> > > > I'm using computers, right? Question is, will it make me very dependent
> > > > and rely a lot on glasses and eventually I need to wear my glasses all
> > > > the time whereas now I don't even wear it all the time?
> > > And Dr Judy, Yes, my computer monitor is clear even without glasses.
> > That means, I do not need any glasses, do I? Reason why I started this
> > topic is, I went to an optical shop and that person there told me that
> > I should get a computer glasses since I face computer all the time. In
> > fact, my purpose of going there was to ask him to help me check my
> > eyesight because after wearing my current glasses (for
> > shortsightednes), I suffer headache. I was guessing that perhaps that
> > current glasses do not suit me anymore. Then, he started suggesting on
> > the computer glasses thing to me. Then, I was thinking (but I wasn't
> > sure), do I need a computer glasses because I face computer all the
> > time?
> > > I'm 25 years old, if that helps. I can view my computer monitor
> > clearly. I have slight astigmatism (-0.50) and -0.75 of
> > shortsightedness. I hope that figures help. I don't really know what
> > that figures mean, though. And do I need one computer glasses?
> Headaches are seldom due to eye problems, see your family doctor. If
> you haven't had an eye exam for a while then you should see your eye
> doctor again.
> At 25 you are unlikely to need special computer glasses. If you get
> headaches with computer use it is possible that the small amount of
> astigmatism is involved. You can test this by wearing your distance
> glasses while using the computer, if the headaches stop then simply use
> your distance glasses for the computer too.
> Wearing glasses for distance or computer will not make your eye lazy or
> worse.
> Dr Judy

> > > > > If I do need to wear computer glasses, that means I only wear them when
> > > I'm using computers, right? Question is, will it make me very dependent
> > > and rely a lot on glasses and eventually I need to wear my glasses all
> > > the time whereas now I don't even wear it all the time?

> And Dr Judy, Yes, my computer monitor is clear even without glasses.
> That means, I do not need any glasses, do I? Reason why I started this
> topic is, I went to an optical shop and that person there told me that
> I should get a computer glasses since I face computer all the time. In
> fact, my purpose of going there was to ask him to help me check my
> eyesight because after wearing my current glasses (for
> shortsightednes), I suffer headache. I was guessing that perhaps that
> current glasses do not suit me anymore. Then, he started suggesting on
> the computer glasses thing to me. Then, I was thinking (but I wasn't
> sure), do I need a computer glasses because I face computer all the
> time?
> I'm 25 years old, if that helps. I can view my computer monitor
> clearly. I have slight astigmatism (-0.50) and -0.75 of
> shortsightedness. I hope that figures help. I don't really know what
> that figures mean, though. And do I need one computer glasses?

> I'll do what I like. You can't really stop people from posting to a
> newsgroup. Everyone knows that everything everyone posts is their own
> opinion. Even what you post needs to be taken with a pinch of salt
> because nobody knows who you are in reality.
> In actual fact in this case I have been proven correct probably
> because I was looking from a more realistic perspective. People in
> the business were looking for something to be wrong instead of looking
> at what was really posted.