Over a million people each year experience an eye injury and a vast majority of them could have been prevented by taking just a few precautions. Your peepers need protecting and proper eye care can see you through many stages of life. If you engage in an activity that could be potentially hazardous, wear the proper protective eye wear that has been approved by the American National Standards Institute or ANSI.

Protecting your Eyes

Eye care should be your primary concern when you engage in an activity where chemicals, projectiles and possible flying objects could injure your eyes. There are dangers everywhere and thinking ahead will not only save you time and money in the doctor’s office but possibly your eyesight as well.

Around the Home

If you clean around the house and use spray cleaners for glass, furniture or even the bathtub, be sure to read the instructions so that you use the product properly. Most people neglect to do this and as a result inhale too many fumes and can even get some of the airborne mist from the cleaners into the eyes. The chemicals in these cleaners can be rather noxious and are capable of burning or corroding the delicate tissues of your eyes, causing blindness. As you can see, eye care is essential in this situation.

Gardening and lawn care also requires diligence and necessary precautions to protect your eyesight. Wearing protective goggles should be a part of your overall eye care in this situation as it can protect you from grass when mowing and flying rocks, twigs and other debris when weed eating or edging the lawn.

Sports

Many swimmers practice good eye care by donning swimming goggles to protect their eyes from the burning chlorinated water in the pool. Racquetball players wear sports goggles or protective glass as part of their eye care regime as the racquetball could fly toward their face at any time. Hunters, target shooters, hockey, basketball and more can all benefit from protective eyewear.

The Workplace

Physical activities in the workplace could also require proper eye care as well. If you work in pest control, landscaping, woodworking, mechanic or even crop dusting, the proper protective eyewear is essential. Chemicals from a car battery could splash a mechanic and pesticides could accidentally get into a pest control or crop duster person’s eyes. Wood shavings could float around from a saw or sander and embed themselves in a woodworker’s eyes and cause lacerations or an infection. Eye care practices in the form of safety glasses or goggles can definitely protect those peepers from harm.

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Tip! For more great articles on contact lenses, LASIK eye surgery and vision problems, visit our Contact lens articles page.

According to research studies conducted in recent years, several patients who underwent LASIK reported problems seeing at night. The induced night vision defects included halos, starbursts and glare around brightly lit objects at night. These night vision problems signify deterioration in quality rather than quantity of vision. Though these night vision problems are typically transient and wear off in a few days, in some patients, the symptoms might persist long after the eye heals.

LASIK is a refractive surgery technique that involves reshaping of the cornea via precise ablation. Night vision problems are known to be caused by the irregularity between the untouched part of the cornea and the reshaped part. It is a known fact that the pupil dilates in darkness and contracts when faced with bright light. However, it is impractical to perform LASIK such that it covers the expansion of the pupil at full dilation at night.

Tip! It’s very difficult, if not impossible, to relax your eyes and mind and maintain clear vision if your body is overly tense. Postural imbalances and physical tension have long been associated with vision problems.

Daytime post-LASIK vision is optimal, since the pupil is smaller than the LASIK flap. But at night, the pupil may expand such that light passes through the edge of the LASIK flap into the pupil. This is what gives birth to night vision anomalies.

Studies have also shown that the possibility of night vision problems increases in patients who have undergone some sort of enhancement LASIK surgery. It might be the case that the desired refraction is not accomplished in the foremost surgery, and hence, patients typically require enhancement surgeries. These patients are generally less happy with the outcome than those patients who have had LASIK surgery only once in life. Moreover, patients who have flatter corneas at the outset are more likely to suffer from starbursts and other night vision problems after surgery.

Tip! Life can be very frustrating for people with vision problems. The world as a whole is likely to be fluid and chaotic for them.

LASIK technology has advanced over time and the surgeons have gained loads of experience in the pertinent field. As a result, the number of patients reporting night vision problems has dropped significantly. Expert surgeons carry out a comprehensive preoperative examination to determine if the patient has large sized pupils. They make use of advanced contemporary equipment to accomplish the same, and therefore, rule out the possibility of long-term night vision defects.

Finding a LASIK surgeon that you are confident about will be able to give you more information about night vision problems.

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Tip! People with vision problems usually do not realize that they have them; they have no reason to think that their view of the world is different from everyone else’s.

It is not uncommon to notice unusual visual symptoms at night after LASIK. Patients often report symptoms of haloes, glare, or a general feeling of poor night vision. Fortunately, these symptoms almost always resolve with time.

There has been a large amount of debate as to the cause of night vision symptoms after LASIK. What is known is that it is much less common than it was with the older generation laser treatments. There are some patients who had LASIK surgery many years ago who will require frequent eye drops to minimize the symptoms.

The major debate has surrounded whethere the size of a persons pupil at night plays into night vision symptoms. In the dark,a person’s pupil will enlarge in size. Some people believe that it is this enlargement of pupil size that causes the night vision complaints. More specifically, the pupil size has enlarged to allow light in that is outside the optical zone created by the laser. Therefore, this light is reflected in a different manner than light inside the optical zone; this leading to night vision complaints. A study published in a peer-reviewed journal has suggested this is wrong. At this point, it is unclear as to the true answer. However, pupil measurement is a standard part of the preoperative workup.

Tip! It’s very difficult, if not impossible, to relax your eyes and mind and maintain clear vision if your body is overly tense. Postural imbalances and physical tension have long been associated with vision problems.

A major development in laser vision correction has been the measurement of higher order abberations. It is felt that these abberations, such as spherical abberation and coma cause a lot of the post-operative visual symptoms that may cause a patient to have a less than satisfactory post-surgical outcome. The development of wavefront abberation treatment or custom cornea treatment is designed to address the treatment of these pre-existing abberations and to minimize the induction of these abberations.

It is felt that by treating these abberations symptoms such a night vision haloes and glare can be minimized. Many surgeons will agree that the advancement with this technology in addition to creating smoother optical zone treatments has minimized these symptoms compared to earlier generation lasers.

Tip! I have first-hand experience with vision problems. I will be eternally grateful to Jane Porchey, my younger son’s kindergarten teacher, for identifying his vision problem in October.

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