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Discussion on: Health issues you face being a Developer 🏥

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Thomas H Jones II

I've the fun combo of being both hyperopic and having fairly bad astigmatism. Seriously, each eye, by itself, has double-vision to the point that, absent glasses, the two lined are about half a letter-height offset from each other (and contributes to why, when I had my clear membership, the retinal scanner didn't work on me and they had to mark my profile as "blind"). Didn't used to be near the problem it is now when I was younger. Younger eyes sorta just "accommodate" for the defect. But, in my late 30s I started getting daily migraines and noticed that, after protracted video-game sessions, my focal point would get "stuck" at the distance from my couch to my TV (and would stay stuck for a couple hours).

For me, the underlying vision-defect and the loss of accommodation-capability that comes with aging has meant that I need a few different pairs of glasses. I have one pair that I use at the office: their focal-length is set for the distance I sit from my workstation's displays when working at the office. I have one pair I use when working at home on my laptop: their focal-length is set for the distance my laptop screen is when my hands are in a comfortable typing-orientation. And I have a third pair for normal reading (so I don't have to hold my book with my arms fully-extended).

Fortunately, being hyperopic means that I only need glasses when doing reading-type tasks. For just walking around, driving, etc., glasses mostly hinder my ability to see beyond a reading-distance.