Light sensitivity

[Daniel1279]

I tried contacts about 10 years ago & had a couple issues with them, mainly being that my eyes were dried out.  I understand that this problem has been fixed with advancements in contact tech.  The other problem I had was that when wearing them, my eyes were very senistive to light.  I have talked to a few people & found that some people have had similar problems, some have not.  I am wondering if there is any way to measure a persons sensitivity to light & if there is anything that can be done (aside from wearing sunglasses when outdoors) to help with this problem.  When I wore contacts, I needed to wear sunglasses pretty much whenever I was outside during the day, even during a cloudy day.

[John C Hagan III, MD, FACS, FAAO]

If you mean senstive to light it can be due to big pupils, light color eyes (gray, green, blue), eye disease such as corneal problems or cataracts, inflammation in the eye.

Some people are just very sensitive. I wear a hat with a bill and sunglasses on most bright days.

JCH MD

[EricDontPlayWitMe]

How do we solve the sensitive issue? I don't want to be stuck wearing sunglasses whenever its bright.I think I have Large pupils is that why?

[John C Hagan III, MD, FACS, FAAO]

Sorry to burst your bubble but dry eyes remains one of the major reasons for people of all ages not being able to wear contacts or to have to stop wearing them. This is especially true for women over 40 because of hormone driven changes that dry the body.

There is no test to assess how light sensitive someone is but generalizations that apply is the lighter the color of the iris (blue, gray, green) tend to be more sensitive than shades of brown and large pupils tend to be more sensitive than smaller pupils.

JCH III MD