Short answer: LUTINA glasses
Long answer:
I’ve always been conscious about exposure to screens. However, the biggest regret for many years has been not to haven taken the action to protect eyes. Its known that eyes are the most important organs in human body. It is through them we experience the world, primarily. Its surprising that we take them for granted and continuously put them under stress. With the advent of smart phones, entertainment/information overload, most people expose their eyes to screens for more than 12 hours a day!
In the past, I attempted to take screen protection eye glasses but owing to lack of proper guidance couldn’t complete the transaction. During normal eye check-ups the ophthalmologists just redirected to their optical vendors to talk to. With not so engaging conversation with the optical vendor who was not much interested to explain the options, differences, I opted the easier route to take time, research and then purchase it later. This pattern repeated couple of times.
Recently, when I visited a painting shop there was an optical shop adjacent to it. As I had to wait for my items in the painting order to be collated, I had time to look around. There was an interesting mini-hoarding which exactly addressed the concerns I had about over exposure to screens. The hoarding talked about UV protection glasses, night driving protection to eyes etc. Also at very good discounts. I collected my order in the painting shop and visited the optical shop. To my pleasant surprise the optical shop owner has demonstrated great hospitality. Received me well and was patient enough to give me an high level walk through of Lutina lenses which he recommended the most. I had many questions in my mind. Most burning ones were:
1) I don’t have eye sight (power). Can I use UV glasses alone? 2) Does using only UV protection glasses, increase the chances of developing power? 3) I have never used eye glasses, would it cause head ache? 4) Can these glasses be used while driving? 5) How to maintain the glasses from scratches?
The shopkeeper was amused at my anxiety and flurry of questions. He was very composed. He mentioned that he is an optometrist and eye-check up is free and is required to give the right lenses. He said if I give assurance on a purchase, the can go ahead for the free eye checkup. I agreed for the deal. He did the regular screening of an optometrist and confirmed I don’t have power but some optical nerves were mildly weakened, probably due to the UV ray exposure.
He then did a sales pitch of different options. There are multiple variants with low – high pricing. The lowest variant provides some 30% UV ray protection and the highest, LUTINA variant provides 100% UV ray protection. He demonstrated with a small torch light. He showed that in the cheap version lenses, blue rays could penetrate through the glasses and in the LUTINA glasses there was absolutely no blue ray lights coming onto the other side. I was very impressed although a part of my brain was shouting there must be something fishy.
He then asked me to choose the frames. I was blown away by his patience levels, he pro-actively brought 100s of frames and described the significance, difference between their categories. I was okay to take any of the decent models but he was persistent that I get the best one that suits my face structure. He made me try multiple options and left the choice to me. I even googled a film star’s movie poster and checked if there are similar frames as the hero wearing it. The shop keeper was quite cool about it and brought some of the similar ones. He made me try other options also. On wearing one of them, he gave his recommendation that it suits me the best. I too felt the same. He also suggested the color combinations that would work.
All I my FAQs were also answered. For the questions mentioned above, he gave the responses. #1 – Yes, even people with no eye power can use these glasses. #2, #3 – No, these glasses wouldn’t cause eye power/head-ache. #4 – Yes, they can be used while driving. However for night driving, exposure to sun these are not the best options. They do give some protection but these glasses are not specialized for these requirements. Just as an FYI, he showed me sun glasses and night driving glasses. They were also pretty cool and at affordable cost. However, I didn’t want to have a bouquet of glasses. So didn’t show much interest on them. #5 – He mentioned he will give a demonstration on how to maintain glasses from scratches and later did so. Key take away – We should not heavily rub the lenses. We should use a micro fiber cloth, move it gently from edge (nose holder) to the rear end (towards ear).
Finally, when it came to price negotiation, he mentioned that the LUTINA glasses were already after the best price and on the frames he gave a discount. I purchased it and after using them for more than 3 months, I’m a very happy customer. This is the first time, I ever used glasses for days and now I can clearly feel the difference. I’m regularly using these glasses whenever I’m using phone, laptop, desktop, TV and when I don’t use them, I immediately realize the difference. The eyes get a mild strain. So, I’m now confident that the shopkeeper was indeed right on his claims.
I’m also impressed by these glasses and upon inquiring that ophthalmologist consultation is not required to use power/LUTINA glasses, I also got my wife and two kids visit this place and purchased LUTINA glasses for them! My wife was also not using glasses and her frame selection, the shopkeeper was very patient to bring several options and left the choice to us. We got a good one. For my son, he had used glasses in the past, the shop keeper proactively suggested the frame was in good shape and need not be changed. So he charged only for the lens. For my daughter, who was 6 years old, she never used glasses and for my concern of she not being to handle them in school, he gave a nice elastic frame which is easy to stretch and sturdy. These did cost me decent amount but I’m now happy that I gave my family option to safe guard their eyes from UV rays. They are not using them regularly and I constantly remind them. My kids got benefitted using them at school in the digital classrooms with giant screens emitting strong UV rays.
Overall, I highly recommend LUTINA eye glasses for UV ray protection. I strongly feel that professionals who work for many hours on screen these are a must. Employers should consider and reward them as a policy and a gesture of employee care/well being. Big companies like Crizal, Lenskart should bring in more awareness and with mass production bring down the price further.