Dear LPG

I recently went for my eye test and was told that my eyes suffered from dry eye syndrome, which was on top of everything else. My first reaction was to show some fear and ask if it would accelerate my already complicated eye problems. Learning that one in three people over 65 suffer (often without even being particularly aware of the fact) was not the best news I received that day, but I felt a little better and encouraged when told that, with care, it would improve.

All I needed to do was go to my local health and beauty retailer or chemist to get some eye drops and use them a few times a day.  I have heard of it but thought it would be severe if the optician’s equipment noticed.  I had no idea that there were so many different drops available, although she had told me that it did not matter too much which brand I chose to use.  

When I got home, I decided to look on the internet to see what the internet had to say about it. The first thing mentioned in so many different articles on the subject was that using electronic screens was one of the biggest causes of the problem these days.  

I remember being told to take a break every 20 minutes when working, but we all look at our phones, televisions and tablets often these days.  Not only is that bad for our eyes in other ways, but apparently, we blink much less frequently when concentrating, and we have also become lazy blinkers.  

I found a few facts about blinking that everyone should be more aware of.  Did you know that, according to one web source, we should blink about 15 times a minute, and watching a video can slow that down to less than five? Imagine how many blinks we miss during a two-hour feature film.  And we need to catch up with how we do it by making sure that our eyelids meet  properly every time. Then there is all the abuse we offer them when we aim a fan directly at our faces during the hot summers.   

Armed with this knowledge, I decided to share my newly found learning in the hope that it might open the eyes of a few who have never considered it; although, I hope that it does not dissuade LPG readers from making the odd visit to the LPG website …

RR, Lewisham 

RR shares some of the facts and a few blinking exercises…

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