More people's experiences of severe eye pain: https://nav9.medium.com/the-real-cure-for-eye-strain-more-experiences-7f4c1c552d5a
Consider it this way: when wearing a pair of shoes that’s too tight for you, and each time you walk, it keeps hurting you, would you remove it or would you pour medicines and apply band-aid on your feet and continue walking while the shoe bites into your skin and flesh? The shoes are an analogy to the way we use our eyes without taking rest. The band-aid and medicines are an analogy to how we use spectacles, eye drops, eye exercises, blue light filters etc., hoping that it would cure us.
(Blue light blocking lenses have shown no evidence of preventing digital eye strain. Ref1, Ref2.).
Sure, some remedies do appear to give a little relief, but they are only treating the symptoms. We should not pretend that it is working. We need to treat the root cause and cure it. I realized after a decade of chronic eye strain, that there’s an obvious, common-sense first-step to the healing process: Removing those “shoes”.
Discovering the truth
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| Doctors tend to focus on intraocular muscles. A less considered fact is how extraocular muscles (shown in red) are affected. I’ve felt excruciating pain in those areas for many years. |
In my case, it began with a burning feeling at the front of my eyeballs. Then came the light sensitivity, occasional sharp pains at the sides of the eyeballs, which became sharp stabbing pains all around and behind my eyeballs. I ignored that too and continued working. Then came severe pain all over the eyes, eye muscles twitching, tightness at the cheek muscles that even spread to the forehead muscles. The sharp stabbing pains continued, and my eyes were paining every waking minute of the day. I found it difficult to even keep my eyes open for too long. This is what chronic eye strain feels like. During the next few years, I consulted plenty of doctors (even at highly recommended eye specialty hospitals). They examined my eyes and found no defect other than myopia. No doctor had even heard of such a severe case of eye strain. They tried their genuine best to help, and I could see they felt bad, because they wanted to help me recover (bless them), but they didn’t know how to cure me. Medical science doesn’t seem to have given enough attention to the root causes of fatigue-related eye strain. Practitioners of ancient traditional medicine couldn’t help either.
My eyes just continued aching and burning every single day, throughout
the day for six more years, and I continued using the computer for many
hours as usual, despite the pain…because I thought I had no other
option. Added to that was the mockery from many who thought I was
exaggerating.
The persistent pain finally drove me to note down daily experiences. Over a period of few years, multiple experiments, correlations and keen observation, coupled with consultation with a doctor, I finally found the cure and started recovering.
The Cure
It’s necessary to follow these three very strictly. Depending on the level of strain, it can take anything from a few weeks to many months to get cured, but this is the only way to cure fatigue-related eye strain. Nothing else works.
- Eight hours of uninterrupted sleep every night: This is the foundation. Without this, nothing else will cure the strain. We assume we are getting enough sleep because we feel refreshed when we wake up…and then don’t notice that we still feel sleepy during the day. Before my eye strain became chronic, I hadn’t noticed I was getting only 4 or 6 hours of sleep for many months. During my experiments, I noted that it was only after 8 hours of uninterrupted sleep, that my eyes felt fine. Interruptions in sleep or short duration of sleep does not seem to allow the muscles and tissues to heal. Strain appears to accumulate everyday due to lack of proper sleep. You’ll also notice that you are able to see much clearer than usual, after you get 8 hours of restful sleep. Children need more than 8 hours of sleep, and noise etc. disrupts sleep.
- Closing the eyes after 20 minutes of strenuous work: Twenty minutes of work followed by closing the eyes, relaxing the face muscles and neck muscles and waiting until the strain subsides (the way we maintain tension in our muscles is a part of the problem). It helps to install software that reminds you to rest at intervals. Even if you don’t feel strained, stop after 20 minutes and rest. It’s necessary. The “20” is not some random number. It’s from many years of experimentation. There is no work that is more important than your eyes. I’ve tried eye drops, an eye gel, anti-reflective coatings, blue-light filters, eye exercises, washing the eyes, the 20–20–20 rule, expensive eye glasses and all the other advice that doctors and common folk think is a cure for eye strain. Nothing worked. At my level of severity, even minor differences were noticeable. The ONLY way to rest the eyes and get relief from fatigue-related strain, is to keep the eyes closed until the strain subsides.
- A well balanced diet of properly cooked food: It’s extremely important to know that when food is not properly cooked or even slightly burnt, it causes discomfort in the digestive system (most of the time you won’t even notice this discomfort) that leads to sleep loss (I’ve mentioned more about this in the paragraphs below). Also, ensure you search the internet and understand what a “well balanced diet” means, and why it’s important. Instead of searching only for foods that can help the eyes, make sure your entire body gets the nutrition it needs. Bodily functions are highly interconnected. When muscles go through strenuous activity, they need a proportional amount of protein (There’s a wide variety of proteins. Chicken meat worked best for me. I have no clue about what protein sources would work for vegetarians). The body also needs natural foods that help with long duration sleep and deep sleep.
Eye strain and myopia can be caused by many other factors too. Those are best diagnosed and treated by a qualified ophthalmologist. Everything I’ve mentioned here, is only for eye strain that’s caused by excess fatigue to the eyes and lack of sleep.
Precautions and Observations
- Eye exercises: Tired muscles need rest. Not exercise. When your eyes are strained, do not do eye exercises. Just close your eyes to rest them.
- Full body exercises: It was of no use in curing or reducing eye strain, and it resulted in better sleep only during the first week. However, full body exercises are very necessary for general health.
- The “SCREAMING”: The pain/burning/discomfort is basically your eyes screaming at you, begging for rest. Never ignore or delay it.
- Digital screen settings: It helped a little bit when I reduced my computer and smartphone brightness to the lowest level I was comfortable with, and used the monitor’s preset “warm” setting. Alternatively, the free night-filter/red-shift apps are also good, but these won’t cure strain. What also helped, was positioning the screens in such a way that reflections on the screen did not cause glare. Anti-glare coatings did not reduce my strain even a little bit because digital screens or blue light was not the reason for strain. Strain was caused by the lack of periodic rest and sleep. Don’t forget to drink sufficient water and blink.
- Rice: Remember this: It is not necessary that rice grains should be separate from each other when cooked. It’s more important that rice is cooked with sufficient water for the right duration (or even boiled with excess water and then drained). Some varieties of rice may need four or five cups of water per cup of rice. I know you’d be shocked if you’ve been taught to use just two cups of water. Do a bit of searching and understand the role of amylose and amylopectin. Freshly cooked rice has reasonably separate grains, and that texture feels good while eating. On cooling, rice will clump up, and that’s normal. Using less water to ensure that cooled rice grains remain separate, is counterproductive. Rice cooked with insufficient water can cause sleep loss.
- Other problem foods: Burnt particles in food caused digestive discomfort, which led to sleep loss. I now throw off the black, burnt spots from bread toast, barbecued chicken, parathas/rotis (undercooked parathas and rotis also caused issues) etc. Any food that felt like chewing-gum, also resulted in sleep loss (it wasn’t cooked properly). Unripe fruits caused this problem too. Water from certain water filters that left a “layery” feeling in my mouth, coffee and even adulterated consumables caused digestive discomfort that led to sleep loss. Flatulence and loss of appetite can be signs that certain foods caused trouble in the digestive system. Different people respond to various foods differently, so over a period of time, diligently figure out which foods are affecting your sleep. It can be food from a hostel, a restaurant, a stall, a bakery, cafe or a packaged snack or even from somebody at home who does not understand the principles of cooking. Make sure you get well-cooked home-food. Also be careful of H.Pylori at places where hygiene isn’t maintained (the ulcers cause pain, resulting in sleep loss).
- Incorrect diagnosis: When eye strain gets bad, the way it affects the eyes can result in doctors assuming you have astigmatism or that your eye power is higher than what it actually is (one doctor even jumped to the conclusion that I had dry eyes, even though I didn’t). Strained eyes can result in significant variations in eye power. Doctors even prescribed cylindrical correction lenses which I couldn’t tolerate for even 10 minutes. Even computerized eye tests and pupil dilation tests showed astigmatism and the wrong power. Oddly, every doctor gave me a slightly different eye power prescription, and each time, the cylindrical correction angle was completely different from the previous reading. I started spending most of my day either not wearing spectacles or using spectacles of a lower power (which didn’t cause any issue, by the way. It actually gave more relief), and when I started getting better sleep and rest, the strain reduced. This time, after getting a good night’s sleep, when I went to the doctor with well-rested eyes, my eye power was diagnosed correctly. Two doctors concluded that I don’t have astigmatism. The high level of strain helped immediately eliminate wrong lens powers that doctors prescribed. People with mild strain tend to try to use lenses with incorrect power and end up worsening their eye issues.
- “Is this lens better or this one?”: It is not necessary to be able to clearly see the last line in the Snellen’s chart. As long as the spectacle lenses feel right, that’s the eye power to stop at. When my eye power was -4.25, and the doctor added another lens to make it -4.5 and asked whether the higher power was better, it appeared clearer and sharper to me (I didn’t realize it was too powerful), so I chose -4.5. I shouldn’t have done that. -4.25 was the correct power. When using the computer, I switch to -2.0 power ordinary glass lens spectacles without any coatings, and I’ve had absolutely no problem (spectacles purchased in 1998). Some people recommend wearing spectacles even if it feels uncomfortable or if it gives a headache, saying that the eyes would adjust after a few weeks. That’s very wrong advice. When my eyes felt uncomfortable, I learned not to wear those spectacles. They were the wrong power, and caused a lot more strain.
- Low power prescriptions: I’m hearing of a lot of people being prescribed -0.25 or -0.5 prescriptions for one eye or both eyes. Please consider that these powers may just be a result of excess strain or lack of sleep. Couldn't wearing spectacles constantly prevent them from recovering to normal sight?
- Bad habits from childhood: For goodness sake, please don’t mess up children’s sleep cycle. Not even for exams. Hard work is good, but losing sleep repeatedly to do hard work is foolish. Right from childhood, we have been taught to ignore discomfort and persevere, but we should have also been taught to recognize when we should stop and give our body the rest it needs.
- Work environments: Even in the most well-meaning work environments, bosses are pushed to deliver results quickly. But that doesn’t mean you need to damage your health in the process. Six hours of computer use a day is what I’d say is the safe-limit (eight hours may work for you, but never skip the rest breaks). When recovering from chronic eye strain though, not more than 4 hours is what I found is best. The entire world is realizing this necessary truth, and you shouldn’t be ashamed to take rest. Being a responsible person who gives their body the rest it needs is one thing. Laziness is an entirely different thing. Any sensible boss or colleague will know the difference.
- Online classes and smartphone/TV use: Teachers and parents need to ensure that students get some necessary breaks during online classes, smartphone use or while watching TV. Kids by nature won’t listen, but please ensure they get their rest, sleep and nutrition. Their disappointment at not being able to play video-games for long, is tiny compared to the disappointment of having to wear spectacles lifelong. The need to wear spectacles itself shows that the eyes are seriously affected. Don’t make it worse. Better still, don’t even allow it to reach a stage where anyone needs spectacles. Protect the eyes.
- Daytime sleep: If you couldn’t get proper sleep at night, you will feel sleepy during daytime. It is extremely important to take that nap. It gives some very essential rest for the eyes that’s even more effective than just keeping the eyes closed.
- Coffee/tea: When the body badly needs rest and you feel sleepy, you should sleep. Drinking coffee or tea to remain awake is a silly thing to do.
- The angle: If you extend your hand in front of you and hold a dumbbell for long, your muscles will start aching after a while. When it starts aching, if you raise your hand to hold the dumbbell above your head, some of your arm muscles will be spared of the weight of the dumbbell and get a chance to relax. The extraocular muscles holding the eyeball, are like the arms holding the dumbbell. Closing your eyes and lying down facing the ceiling helps those muscles relax a little bit (it gives just a teensy bit of relief).
- Spectacles are not a cure: Some people assume that if they constantly wear spectacles or contact lenses for a few years, they will get cured to normal sight. It won’t.
- Glass lenses were better: I find this strange myself, but during my chronic levels of strain, plastic lenses always caused my eyes to get strained quicker than when I used glass lenses. Now that I’ve recovered a lot, I feel that difference a slight bit lesser, but there seems to be some reality to it. Perhaps glass offers better visual acuity. I hope researchers could look into this. Of course there’s a safety benefit to plastic lenses, but while sitting in front of a computer, I prefer glass lenses. Some opticians may lie, saying that glass lenses are not available. They are available and are cheaper than plastic lenses.
As for everyone who knowingly or un-knowingly deprive people of sleep and rest right from childhood, please realise the seriousness of the matter and establish processes that help create a nation of healthy people.
The human eye was not evolved to handle this kind of strain. Too many people are getting incorrect advice and hurting their eyes. Please tell more people about getting proper sleep and rest. There are not enough doctors telling them.
CAUTION
In the same way that antibiotics should not be discontinued before the full course is completed, even the procedure for rest, sleep and proper nutrition should not be discontinued. It can take several weeks/months to recover from acute strain, and it takes several months/years to recover from chronic strain. I initially took a 15 day vacation to check if it would cure the strain. When it didn’t, I assumed that taking rest was of no use. I didn’t realize that my strain was chronic and I had severe sleep loss. The strain had built up to such a severe stage that longer periods of rest and sleep were required. The right thing to have done would have been to take a sabbatical for a year to ensure I got rest. Due to ignorance and bad advice, I continued working, and the problem persisted for several years. This applies even to conditions like back pain etc. When the body needs rest, give it rest. Any other work can wait. Else, you’ll end up with a severe burnout that will prevent you from working anyway.
Like someone once said:
“If you do not give time for wellness, you will be forced to make time for illness”.
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