[edraket]

Hi everybody,

There is a lot of talk about people having rsi in their arms and neck and stuff. I don't have a very big problem with this.
But my eyes are always killing me.
I wear glasses and my prescription has stayed the same since I was three years old. That is untill I started working with computers a few years back. In the past two years my eyes have detoriated more than a whole stop. I find that kind of frightening.
I also have burning eyes constantly and headaches all the time.
I think my eyes just can't stand the screen or something.
Has anyone ever had this kind of problem?
Any tips? DO you think getting an lcd screen would help?
I work in 3d animation. So I am pretty much stuck with a computer,
Next year I plan to go back to school and get my BA or in animation. Maybe I should just forget about the whole animation thing and try to go for something where I work without a computer. Maybe illustration?
I need to do something creative though. Otherwise I'd go insane.
Any advice?

eddy

[ November 21, 2001: Message edited by: edraket ]

[SporQ]

lots of eye problems stem from the refresh rate. or, how fast the picture redraws on the screen. the higher the refresh, the more times per second it gets drawn, and hence, easier on the eyes

i hear that 75mhz is the lowest you want, but i sometimes get a headache even with that. 85mhz or higher is really good, you should have some kind of setting for it in your display properties.

or you could get an lcd that has no refresh rate at all, its just a different technology. no flicker and no eye strain.

[Tendril]

Yeh mine are hurting right now...

turning the brightness down helps, especially if your in a really dark room, cos everytime you look away from the monitor your iris has to adjust the light levels. Then when you look back it lets too much light in... I think...

[Toeter84]

Hi Edraket.

I think the solution SporQ offers, is a very good one. Some weeks ago, I heard about something different. I'm told that there are special computer glasses - no, don't laugh! - and the guy I heard it from wore them whenever he worked with his computer. He didn't have eye damage yet, but was preventing himself from it in this way. The glasses were made of darkening material, which gives the same contrast but a less light and lucid (?) screen.
The glasses may be a bit Bill Gates' stylie, but I think it will help alot. I have no idea where they would sell them.

[ November 21, 2001: Message edited by: Toeter84 ]

[edraket]

Well my refrash rate has always been at 85.
I think it's just the light.
Ever turned off all the lights in your room while your screen is on? Look at how much light it produces. Thats what you are looking into all day.
On a bright day my head hurts like hell when I go out. I guess I just have a low light tolerance or something.
Kind of cool. I should become goth.
Those glasses sound good. But I already wear glasses. So I think it would be kind of hard to wear those as well.
They sound like sunglasses anyways. I can turn down the brightness of my screen as well. But it's kind of hard to design stuff that is going to be seen on anything else then my screen if I do that.

eddy

[igino]

Hi Eddy,

I think this is a serious problem. Though I don't work at the computer full time and I can't remember my eyes hurting, I still care about the subject.

The computer screen is like a big gun which shoots constantly bursts of light to your eyes. The eyes, as far as I know, consume Vitamin A to make perception work. But not always the same amount of Vitamin A. They consume more when the light situations change fast, and less when your view is stable. For example if you look at a wide, still landscape, or if you a sleep, your eyes regenerate and reload with Vitamin A; if you look at the screen which bombards your eyes for hours, all the Vitamine A is used up very soon, so the eyes con't produce the necessary chemicals needed for perceiving and your eyes start to hurt!

If you really WANT to do animation, my suggestion would be to keep an eye on your nutrition, and if possible to work on a LCD screen.

I hope this helps a little,

igino

[Krycek]

I know this great Indian Witch Doctor...

Tendril has a point about your eyes adjusting to the light intensity. The problem can be a number of things; the most common cause for eye soreness and headaches (plus tiredness) is your eyes constantly re-focusing to different distances. A screen is at the most an arms length away, but the distance to the nearest object behind the screen can be much greater. When working at a desk, even if you are a dedicated worker, you look up from your screen frequently. Each time this happens your eyes re-focus from the screen or keyboard to what ever is behind or around it (clock, wall, girls legs etc.). This can happen every 10 seconds or so and your eyes are working quite hard to keep up. Light intensity can also play a factor in this.

…and this old wife I knew…

Close your eyes (don’t rub) every so often or stare at an infinite distance, like the sky (if they let the natural light in where you work). My headaches have gone since I started this.

The other solution is to wear an eye patch over both eyes.

[dr . bang]

what about your screen resolution? if its too small, make it bigger

or, you might sit infront of your computer too much. If you get tired, you can go to your drawing table and doodle a few pics, that way, it relaxes your eye and mind in a way.

[edraket]

Well people
Thank you very much for your advice.

Igino: How would I keep my eyes on nutrition? I am not quite sure what you mean by that. You mentioned Vitamine A. Do you mean I should just start taking vitamin A supplements?
I can always try that.

I walk away from my computer a lot. But lately it doesn't seem to help. As soon as I sit back down my eyes start burning.

I think I might just go talk to my doctor about this. Maybe he will know some solutions as well.

And maybe I should just go into the illustration major next year. The thought of sitting behind a computer for the rest of my life is just not very pleasant.

ok..well...thanks guys.

eddy

[Tarandon]

I didn't read the whole thread, so sorry if i repeat something. I work a desk job at the hospital, and our offices are supplied with a sort of polaroid filter for the computer screen. It drapes itself over the monitor and only lets wavelengths of one direction through at a time. Seriously reduces the amount of light entering your eye but does not significantly reduce the color or contrast of the image. They may be similar to the glasses someone else spoke of earlier. I'm sure if you look around you could find one in no time.

Hope that helps!

[igino]

Edraket, I didn't meant you should start puring vitamin A supplements in your mouth everyday. Supplyments may help, but they are overdosed very often. Much better, IMHO, are natural vitamin sources - like vegetables of fruits. I think the body is able to absorb the vitamins much easier this way. You may also add supplyments to your food, but I wouldn't ouverrate it.

What you'd need to eat are carrots (I eat them every day ), spinach, kale, ect. They contain the most pro-vitanin A. Also very improtent for your eyes is zink and selenium (expensive, but you may find good supplyments featuring those). Make sure you add some fat to your food if you eat vitamin A. It is only fat soluble.

To solve this problem, you'll have to look this up by your own. I mean there is really a lot of literature covering this subject. Buy a good book or two. You'll get the detailed answers there.

Krycek's techniques are worth a try too!(if not a couple of tries )

igino

[burn0ut]

looking at your computer screen in the dark is very bad for your eyes, its also bad watching tv in the dark.

[[Shizo]]

.....which is another reason for me to hurry up and get hired in some lame game company!
Cause right now at work (i work at casino payroll) i sit on 10 year old computer 8 hours , which has like 60Hz refresh, 256 colors, 640x480 resolution, plus the red color channel flickers on and off all the time
poor me :o

[igino]

I almost forgot the best vitamin A source ever: cod-liver-oil!! Beside many other very healthy things, it contains A LOT of vitamin A. And it's already a fat-vitanin combination. Buy a bottle in your drugstore and take one tablespoon a day. It's easy and cheap.

igino

[Evenflcw]

If you're nearsighted (have trouble seeing stuff over long distances), try wearing your old glasses or non altogether when reading or working infront of the screen (depends on how nearsighted you are). Some opticians recommend this. The extreme focus that brand new glasses let's you have make your eyes strain more than they have to on short distances.
I heard this from a friend (acctually two friends) so I don't know the exact details, but it seemed reasonable.

[edraket]

Well thank you guys. I have seen some usefull things.

My eyes have been hurting more and more the past few days. I even had to take some time off work. And it's not going away when I am away from my screen. So I guess there is more that is wrong with my eyes right now.
I am going to the doctor tomorrow. Hopefully he will know something I can do.
thanks,

eddy

[Robert Ashley]

If your eyes and head hurt when you go out on a bright day....or they just hurt for no reason, do not thik its your computer.

This is not natural. There was someone that I know, she was only 23 years old too...that complained about the same exact problem you are talking about. She didnt go to the doctor because she thought that things were just too bright.....well she had an anruism (spelling??) [When a blood vessle pops in your brain and causes a clot and you die]

She was healthy looking, she ate normal foods, she was thin, she seemed completely fine....but there was the problem with headaches and her eyes hurting.

This is not something you take lightly. If you have constant head aches or eye aches, dont blame it on your computer....GO TO A DOCTOR! None of us here are doctors (well maybe...if someone has a doctor in art or painting)

Thats all I can say about it.

[p-koenig]

hi edraket
i also suggest it's definitely the best idea to visit your doc and see whether your eye problem is monitor-related or not.

in case it's not, here are some points you should consider:

• don't place the monitor right next to a window due to the distraction of light + reflections - the window(s) should be parallel to your view direction
  
• while sitting, your eyes should point at the upper monitor part in a distance of 50-70cm (depending on the monitor size)
  
• don't smoke while sitting @ your comp (coz the eyes consume lots of oxygene and smoking lower the body's oxygen supply)
  
• preferably use LCDs than CRTs, otherwise use @ least 85Hz, 100% contrast and 60% gamma - the brightness should be appropriate to your room's lighting
  
• note that you often forget to blink/wink? your eyes (dont know the word ), in case you are highly concentrated -> the lack of moisture might harm your eyes
  
• have breakes regularly, i.e. don't look at your monitor all the time (there are useful eye-exercises you might try out)
  
• polaroid filters are pretty much useless and won't solve your problem.
  
• as mentioned before, your nutrition should contain enough �-carotin and vitamine A
  
• there might be much more but i guess they're the most important points...
  

btw i had some eye probs too, w/ my old 19" CRT. but they just vanished since i use my 22" (iiyama vision master pro 512, 140khz), though i'm working @ 1600*1200*32/100hz.

this might be caused by the higher sharpness of the 22" (0,24mm mask), the 19" seems to be blurry (w/ a 0,28mm dot mask) in direct comparison, which is quite annoying to your eyes..

i didn't choose to buy a LCD coz most models do not support hires modes, and on the other hand the crystals' dullness are annoying when you need to have quick refresh-times, like you do in most games for example.

this is a general problem of the LCs physique, hope it'll be solved some day...

k then, hope this helped

p-koenig

[Brian Despain]

Nobody's mentioned blinking yet. No, seriously. I have this thing where when I get really into a drawing or painting I tend to stop blinking as often as I would normally. In fact, I didn't even notice this until my wife brought it up after listening to me complain about red burning eyes for the umpteeth time. Since then I try to remember to blink more often and subsequently have had far less problems with my eyes.

[bld]

Try adding some backlight.

I used to have this problem too, then I took a desklamp, placed it slightly behing my monitor and faced it at a nearby wall out of my vision. The reflected light will ease the light f*ing a monitor will do to your eyes by making the entire room brighter, while avoiding glare and such on the monitor.

A monitor kicks out alot of light, its pretty much like looking dead into a lightbulb, try looking at a pure white screen for awhile, your eyes will scream in pain after a few seconds. Just crank up the room brightness.

[edraket]

Ok,

Well I went to the doctor.
There is supposedly this virus that can cause all this. The doctor described it and I pretty much fit all the other symptoms as well. (lightheadedness, flu symptoms that come and go and a few other things)It should dissappear in a few weeks.
So I guess that's it. I think I will also get a special screen installed in front of my pc screen to filter out excessive light.
As for the anuerism. I am 23. I guess I am next then... But thanks for the uplifting news : ) My bloodpressure is fine if thats what your talking about. And for the rest I wouldn't know what to do about it.
Everyone thank you for your comments. I think this has been a fairly usefull thread for a lot of people.

eddy