STRAINING TO SEE: EYE STRAIN POSSIBLE EVEN WITH 20-20 VISION

Emily Brennan, 11, wears her glasses to reduce eye strain while she plays the violin.

A pair of glasses with red and green prescription lenses are used during an eye-focusing exercise.

Emily Brennan and Trina Seyer both have 20-20 vision, but they both wear glasses for eye strain.

Emily, 11, has problems focusing and getting her eyes pointing correctly.

Trina, 28, is farsighted, and her eyes have to work extremely hard when she reads or does close-up work.

Even if people have 20-20 vision, they can have eye strain and need further testing, Cape Girardeau optometrist Dr. Beverly Cleair says.

The problem is an increased demand for close work and reading.

Emily, the daughter of Calvin and Kathie Brennan of Cape Girardeau, noticed that when she tried to play her violin she began seeing double.

The double vision occurred when she shifted her eyes from the music sheet to her violin strings.

Emily, who will be a sixth-grader at Alma Schrader Elementary School, told her violin teacher about the problem. The teacher then told Emily's father. In June, Emily had an eye exam.

Blurred or double vision is a symptom of eye strain.

Eye doctors are seeing more people with eye-strain problems, says Cleair, who works out of the Regional Eyecare Center.

Dr. Rachel Shewmake, an optometrist for JCPenney Optical in the West Park Mall, says she sees two or three people a day with eye-strain problems.

Cleair and Shewmake both blame the computer and the need for close work for the increased incidences of eye strain.

Shewmake calls the computer the No. 1 cause of eye strain; Cleair estimates that 20 percent of the people using computers have eye strain problems.

The problem is an increased demand for close work, Cleair says, explaining that it used to be that people could see things clearly at a distance. Now that reading and computers are so important in people's daily lives, more people are complaining of eye strain.

It used to be a college student problem, Shewmake says, because college students had to do so much reading. Now people from age 20 to 60 have jobs that require them to use computers, and the eyes must adjust.

For Trina, who lives near Dutchtown with her husband, Michael, her eye problems started when she was young. She had been given the wrong eyeglass prescriptions several times. The wrong prescription lens had given her low-grade headaches, especially when she did a lot of reading.

Her sister, Marrie Read, had graduated from optometry school and had noticed a problem with Trina's son, Alex, then 4.

Trina was urged to take Alex to an optometrist, which she did. Cleair prescribed glasses for Alex. Two years later and after having headaches from reading for several years, Trina also went to Cleair.

Headaches are another symptom of eye strain.

Trina was diagnosed with farsightedness, and she was given glasses to correct the problem.

Before she received her glasses, Trina, who reads for two hours a night, accommodated for her problem by covering her left eye when it tired and read with her right eye until it tired.

Emily, who has a variety of interests, including pets, art, music and Beanie Babies, underwent a two-hour examination, including work on a diagnostic computer program. She was diagnosed with focusing and pointing problems.

Emily used a computer program to help strengthen her eyes but also uses other eye exercises.

Cleair, who is treating Emily, advocates vision therapy along with eyeglasses.

Some of Emily's exercises include the F.W. Brock string, a string with beads at each end. One end of the string is placed between the patient's eyes and the other end is held by a second person several feet away. The idea is for the second person to walk his end toward the patient. This helps the patient's eyes focus as the beads come closer.

Emily also has an exercise where she wears red-green glasses to read. The copy has red and green strips put over it, so the red lens focuses on the red copy and the green lens focuses on the green copy. The idea is to have the eyes pointing correctly and working together. If the reading material turns black, it means one eye has shut down.

If Emily works hard at her vision therapy, Cleair says, she could be able to read without her glasses within four months.

Most eye-strain problems can be fixed with vision therapy in three to six months, Cleair says.

Emily says she didn't like school last year because she would become dizzy and sick to her stomach, especially when reading books with tiny print.

As for her violin and piano lessons, she says she's improved a lot since getting her glasses.

For Trina, she has one regret: She didn't take her son to have his eyes tested sooner. When he was 3, she noticed his eyes watering when he tried to put beads on a pipe cleaner during an arts and crafts project. She recommends testing children early for eye problems.

As far as her own glasses, she's only had them a week. Trina says she has been to the movies, and the glasses seem to work fine. Her eyes used to burn when she went to the movies. They didn't last week.