Have you ever wondered why your eye care provider spends so much time carefully examining your eyes? Although they are looking for diseases or conditions that can affect your vision during eye exa ...View Article
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Posted on 09-18-2017
When it comes to protecting your vision, it’s important to know about blue light and how it can harm your eyes. As a brief refresher on colors in the natural world may be in order: Light from the sun appears white, but in fact, it is actually a combination of the entire spectrum of colors, with blue, green, orange, red and yellow light rays. The light rays in the blue end of the spectrum are shorter in length and contain more energy than the longer rays closer to the red end of the spectrum.
At Eye 1st Vision Center, we offer comprehensive optometry services for patients residing in Sandy Springs, Marietta, Brookhaven, Roswell, and the greater Atlanta, GA area. Our optometrist offers the following blue light facts to remind our patients about the need to protect their vision from energetic sources of light.
Staring directly at the sun without protective glasses will damage your eyes. But did you know that staring at computer screens can also cause eye damage? Eye care professionals are dismayed to see how many hours their patients are spending riveted to the display of their computer tablet, smartphone or desktop computer each day, taking in blue rays.
We need exposure to some ultraviolet light on a regular basis from the sun, because it is responsible for us making vitamin D. But excessive exposure to UV light will damage the eyes. You may suffer from eyestrain, vision fatigue or even macular degeneration.
Patients encounter blue light in a variety of places. It may begin with a computer screen at home to check the weather and email, followed by 8 hours at school or at work. Then, if using public transportation for the commute, there are more hours spent looking at a smartphone.
Approximately 62% of survey respondents to a 2015 American Optometric Association stated that they looked at electronic devices at least 5 hours a day. A striking 14% of respondents said they look at screens for 10 hours or more each day.
After getting an exam and consulting with your eye care professional about your regular exposure to blue light, the optometrist may recommend that you get blue light filters to put on each screen you look at.
The eye doctor can also prescribe special computer glasses that will reduce the amount of blue light that you see on unfiltered devices, going forward.
We are known for the high-quality optometry services that we provide for patients in Sandy Springs, Marietta, Brookhaven, Roswell, and the greater Atlanta, GA area and beyond. If you have any questions for the doctor about protecting your eyes from excessive exposure to blue light or would like to make an appointment for a vision exam, please get in touch with the professionals at Eye 1st Vision Center today.
How much time do you estimate that you spend looking at various screens each day, from desktop and laptop computers to your smartphone or tablet? Please sound off in the comments section below!
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