
Exercising for Healthier Eyes - boh
http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/03/26/exercising-for-eye-health/
======
djb_hackernews
Let this be a tale of warning.

In February of 2011 I was a 28 year old, healthy (perfect vision, etc)
software developer working for a small software company. I was working on some
cool stuff, was getting the extra responsibilities I wanted and putting in at
least 10 hour days every day. I was learning, and hacking and building at an
awesome pace.

Until, like a switch, my eyes dried up and I could barely keep them open.
Literally in the span of an hour or so I was happily hacking away to driving
myself home opening one eye at a time. Since then it's been more of the same.
Avoiding bad lighting, no more TV, limited computer use.

I've seen 3 Opthamologists, some name brand ones, some research clinics. They
all tell me I have Blepharitis, which I disagree with (which I know sounds
crazy). I wake up with tired, dry eyes and it's a battle all day long. I've
tried lots of things, low light, low contrast, fish oil pills, antibiotics,
anti-inflammatories, cold compresses, hot compresses, drops of all kinds,
special computer glasses, restasis, books, meditation, etc.

To be honest, it's been hell. I worry about my future career and it's
negatively affected relationships. It's gotten somewhat better, but it is
still a constant discomfort. I just try to keep my eyes relaxed, eye drops
nearby, and massage them frequently.

So, give your eyes a break once in a while and be more mindful of them. I bet
if I listened to my body at the time it would have told me my eyes were
strained and I should give it a break.

If anyone else suffers similarly, please reach out would really appreciate
chatting with people in similar situations.

~~~
clumsysmurf
I can understand your frustration with doctors.

Around 15 years ago I had redness and pain in my eye. It got bad enough, that
although after-hours, I went to a Cigna Urgent Care center. I was examined by
a non-specialist who didn't know what the problem was, but guessed it was
probably a bacterial infection. So he sent me home with antibiotics, and told
me to come back in "about a week" if things did not clear up. Well, a week
later it was only worse, so he told me I needed to see a specialist
"immediately".

I was in terrible pain. Redness, photosensitivity, etc. I get an appointment
with a real opthamologist, and he said I have a viral infection in the cornea,
and its serious. I had already permanently lost vision (from 20/20 to 20/50).
Antivirals + steroids cleared it up, but it created a dynamic that is
difficult to manage to this day.

Now with corneal ulcers, the surface of the cornea is uneven. This prevents
the tear film from distributing evenly.

With poor tear film (tear break up time, TBUT) the eye becomes inflamed.

With inflammation, comes neo-vascularization, nerve destruction, and more
epithelial defects. All these conspire against proper tearing, and the cycle
repeats.

So - its very important to get whatever dynamic you have under control. 'Dry
eyes' is actually pretty serious, but most opthamologists agree we don't have
good weapons for it.

Some people have dry eyes, even though they produce too many tears. Its
because their tears are defective. Like some people having high HDL, but their
HDL is defective.

Almost all the OTC stuff is crap. All I can do is recommend

1) Find the best specialist in your area, and see them. I saw a cornea
specialist at the Mayo Clinic for a while; they were "OK". But I was surprised
they had an even more famous individual there - and she never once said "hmm,
what we've been trying for the last 2 years hasn't been working, lets see what
my (famous) colleague X thinks". So you have to manage your doctors with great
attention. Also, my suspicion - is that cornea MDs like to operate (in my case
- cornea replacement), not treat. Operating is probably more profitable.

2) For dry-eyes, you should consider a few things. I use Systane _Gel_ Drops
going to sleep. Friction between cornea and eye lids is a problem. The various
PM oil formulations are too goopy; but this is the thickest liquid that seems
to protect me through the night. I don't wake up with red eyes.

3) For the office, consider moisture being wicked away from your cornea by
ventilation. I wear a hat and glasses. Try things that make a full seal, like
something Ridick would wear, or a motorcycler. Try Wiley-X Climate control
stuff. Since the seal needs to be perfect, try them on first.

4) I love my Oakley M-Frame Heater lenses. Huge, wrap around the face. I wear
clear even at night if I'm not wearing goggles to protect that micro-climate
around the eyes.

5) You can try the 'dry eye forums' at
[http://www.dryeyezone.com/talk/](http://www.dryeyezone.com/talk/) .. YMMV.

I hope things get better.

~~~
revelation
Just to drive this one point home (IANAD, but personal experience): the cornea
of the eye is simultaneously very susceptible to infections and more or less
immunosuppressed by design to maintain clear vision (see [1]). Infections can
spread extremely fast and will (even if promptly treated) leave behind
permanent damage such as photosensitivity (best case really). Ideally you
would have daily checkups to see if the antibiotic is actually effective.

If you use contacts, make sure to be extremely diligent in cleaning them.

1:
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ocular_immune_system](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ocular_immune_system)

------
nolok
I'm genuinely interested in what steps do other people on HN who spend their
work day on a computer take to "protect" their vision ?

I took on the habit of looking a distant wall every half hour or so for a
couple minute or go drink a coffee, but while it helps with the "always
looking close" vision I still have a very tired feel in my eyes at the end of
a long day.

I do have good vision and have it checked every year, but I worry I'm doing
some long term damage anyway, and the white of my eyes does look more
bloodshot than they do in average people my ages (and gets a lot worse after
big long hours release/bugfix days).

Do you guys have any tips to help the eyes rest ?

~~~
chadgeidel
I feel that modern LCD monitors are too bright. Typically I have mine set at
50% brightness. Adjusting environmental/ambient light is important too if you
can. I try to adjust my desk/chair orientation that overhead lights are behind
my head instead of in front of me (no line-of-sight light sources other than
my monitors). I also use f.Lux
([http://justgetflux.com/](http://justgetflux.com/)).

I'm not sure what combination of this list of things does the most good, but I
rarely get eyestrain and I look at screens for 12+ hours per day.

Not sure if this matters, but I had LASIK surgery 7 years ago and ever since
my eyes have been pretty sensitive to light (night vision FTW), so this is
something I've been working on for a while now.

Edit: I am 40 years old, and have been looking at screens for long hours at
least 10-15 years now.

~~~
joncrocks
Indeed. But I'd describe it as modern LCDs have a default brightness that it
likely too bright for most uses.

Manufacturers likely set this so that the colours 'pop' when being demoed (the
same reason they sell/create/display glossy monitors, because they demo well).

Taking the brightness down almost never impacts usability, but I've found can
significantly affect eye strain (that 'OMG, my eyeballs are hurting' feeling).

~~~
jstelly
I totally agree with this. I usually turn my monitor brightness down to the
lowest setting (my work monitor has been set this way for years). I've done
the A/B testing on myself and find that I will develop something like a mild
headache (probably eye strain) after a day of working at the default
brightness. On my old LCD monitor the brightness would reset if power got
disconnected so I did the experiment several times accidentally. My current
monitor (Dell U3014) remembers the setting across power resets. I have my
brightness control set to zero. It looks dim at first but after a few minutes
it looks completely normal and you forget about it.

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avdempsey
Glad I'm not a mouse: "After two weeks, half of the mice in each group were
exposed to a searingly bright light for four hours. The other animals stayed
in dimly lit cages. This light exposure is a widely used and accepted means of
inducing retinal degeneration in animals."

This sounds like torture to me. I love you scientific method, but sometimes
you bum me out.

~~~
georgemcbay
The real kicker to this is:

"But obviously, mice are not people, so whether exercise can prevent or
ameliorate macular degeneration in human eyes is “impossible to know, based on
the data we have now,”"

I have a fairly complex view of animal testing where I think it may be
justified in some situations, but this type of testing in situations where you
self-admit you didn't learn anything knowingly human-applicable when you could
have done a more long term study just observing the eye health of multiple
sets of older humans (one set which lives an active lifestyle and one which
does not) is pretty fucked up.

~~~
Houshalter
Animal testing is horrible. There are some cases where it may be necessary,
but this is just excessive. There was one guy who exploded hundreds of dogs in
a vacuum, basically just to see what would happen. And I bet there are
probably worse things being done even today.

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GvS
Most important part: "But obviously, mice are not people, so whether exercise
can prevent or ameliorate macular degeneration in human eyes is “impossible to
know, based on the data we have now,” said Machelle Pardue, a research career
scientist at the Atlanta Veterans Administration Medical Center, who is the
senior author of the study. She and her colleagues are trying to find ways to
determine the impact of exercise on human eyes. But such experiments will take
years to return results."

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jobu
_" These growth factors, especially one called brain-derived neurotrophic
factor, or B.D.N.F., are known to contribute to the health and well-being of
neurons and consequently, it is thought, to improvements in brain health and
cognition after regular exercise."_

That's interesting, and it sounds great, but like nearly any study of the
brain there is conflicting information from other studies:

 _" Brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) overexpression in the forebrain
results in learning and memory impairments."
[http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19095063*](http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19095063*)

~~~
a_c_s
Where's the conflict? Plenty of chemicals/hormones/etc. in the body follow the
pattern of:

too little = bad enough = good too much = bad

A study showing the chronic, high levels of something are bad doesn't
generalize to mean that increasing levels is always (or even usually) a bad
thing.

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xbonez
I spend 10-16 hours in front a monitor too (work + come back home, watch
movies etc.). After getting flux[0], I immediately noticed a marked difference
in how much lesser my eyes were tired by the end of the day.

It takes a day or two to get used to the yellow tint that flux adds, but it
makes the screen so much easier to look at. After using flux for a while,
you'll be surprised how much a monitor not running flux hurts your eyes - it
just feels jarringly bright.

[0] [http://justgetflux.com/](http://justgetflux.com/)

------
enscr
Some good comments here that I feel like implementing

@ColonelPanic001 : dark cube, overhead lights off, monitor at minimum
brightness

@jisaacstone : large monitor, big font, keep it far away. Relax instead of
leaning in toward the screen. I am often mentally tired at the end of day but
no eye strain.

@a8da6b0c91d : get sunlight

@xbonez : try [http://justgetflux.com/](http://justgetflux.com/)

@djb_hackernews : Personal experience on why taking timely care is important

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billioncents
Need a beverage that deceives the mind into thinking the body has just
finished exercising to release "growth factors" such as "B.D.N.F". This way,
we can stay at home and keep on reading hacker news, as apose to, you know...
exercising.

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abledon
This sounds crazy, But i started doing a chinese yoga called 'Qi Gong' and my
eye sight has improved from -1.75, -1.50, to -0.5ish, -0.5ish

exercise works! especially martial art based ones

~~~
CanSpice
It worked for you, but at this time there's nothing saying it will work for
everybody.

~~~
gress
Nothing works for everybody.

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nu2ycombinator
Interesting. They need subscription to read this article, but not if you are
using Safari browser.

~~~
Pwntastic
It might just be cookies or some kind of tracking. I got the login requirement
in chrome (my default browser) but don't see it in IE (which I rarely use)

~~~
adambard
Seems to be cookies, private browsing mode works to get around them too.

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127
Requires registration to read the article. No thanks.

~~~
k-mcgrady
Worked for me. I think they have a weekly limit you can read for free. Try
incognito/private browsing mode.

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ffghhse
Yup, exercise your eye muscle does wonders.

