My monitor. Will my eyes end up fried?

[ryanghall]

I'm 27 and they've come on like wildfire in the last year. I'd never had this problem before.

[kapw7]

Your floaters have nothing to do with the monitor 99% of times. I had a similar problem recently affecting my right eye. I have done a lot of reading on this and I suggest you visit an ophtalmologist specialist as soon as possible. Most times it's something harmless but you need to make sure with a specialist doctor.

[ryanghall]

I realize that an optometrist isn't technically an "eye-doctor" but the one I have has a very expensive rather large new machine that takes a full picture inside the eye and he assured me I have nothing to worry about with respect to the floaters. So I'm not worried that there's anything drastically wrong and I don't think an opthamologist would have any better equipment than this place would.

I think a new monitor is in order though.

[JoePro]

I don't know about the equipment... My left eye was red, a couple weeks ago, and went to see an optometrist. She had some funky machines too. She diagnosed me with an eye infection and prescribed cortico-steroid drops. After a couple days of using the drops, I had developed acute pain in both my eyes. I went to see an ophtalmologist and he told me to throw the drops in the garbage. Turns out the drops could've damaged my eyes. Oh it turns out I didn't even have an infection!

Bottom line is I will never go see an optometrist for my eyes EVER again.

[mtgordon]

Is there any disadvantage to turning up the refresh rate on your monitor? I just checked and mine is running at 60Hz. I can bump the setting up to 75Hz if I want, but I haven't had any eye strain or anything in the past. Should I do this as a precautionary thing?

[bly]

Turn up the monitor to as high as it will go.

60 is way slow.
75 is slow
85 is the lowest to keep my headaces away.
When I was using CRTs I tried for at least 100 to 120 to reduce eye strain. A quality CRT and video card might go as high as 200hz.

LCDs are the only way to go if you sit in front of a monitor all day.

[benza13]

This only matters for non-LCD monitors, if you don't have an LCD, then yes, you need to increase the refresh rate, just make sure your monitor supports whatever you choose.

[Mercman572]

[ QUOTE ]
The eye floaters are capillaries that burst when you mature. You are probably in your late teens? Its just something that happens when you stop growing.

[/ QUOTE ]

this is relieving, I got them on my od CRT when it only supported 60hz. I got a samsung crt now that is recommended at 1600x1200 at 74 hrz. this is not an option for me when i try to set the fresh rate when right clicking my desktop. is there any way I can manually change this?

[kapw7]

Optometrists are not qualified to give medical advice. And believe me an opthalmologist can have more "funky" equipment. Of course I am not a doctor myself but because I had a recent experience, the advice was to see a specialist. 99.9% it is nothing dangerous but there are a few nasty diseases that need to be treated ASAP and only a specialist can diagnose them.

Anyway your optometrist is much more qualified to give general advice than me and if he says its fine then no reason to worry. Personally when it comes to eyes I can become a bit hypochondraic. Hope everything goes well!

[CORed]

Optometrists are trained primarily to prescribe glasses or contact lenses. Most do a very competent job of that. They are not medical doctors and really not qualified to diagnose or treat medical problems. There is nothing wrong with seeing an optometerest to prescribe corrective lenses, but if you have a medical condition related to your eyes, you really should see an M.D. A family physician or internist is probably better than an optometrist. The GP will refer you to an opthalmologist if necessary.