Practical advice from your ophthalmologist
A few simple habits, repeated day after day, protect your sight better than most treatments do. Here is what we find ourselves explaining most often in consultation — and what is worth re-reading calmly at home.
Putting in eye drops properly
Wash your hands. Pull the lower lid down to make a small pocket, look up, and let one drop fall into it without the nozzle touching your eye or lashes. Then close the eye gently for a minute, without blinking, pressing a fingertip against the inner corner of the lid, next to the nose: that keeps the drop in the eye instead of letting it drain away towards the throat.
- One drop is enough — the eye cannot hold more
- Wait five minutes between two different drops
- Close the bottle straight away and respect the use-by period once opened
- Never share a bottle, not even within the family
- Do not start or stop a prescribed drop without medical advice
Wearing lenses safely
A contact lens is a medical device sitting on the cornea. The overwhelming majority of serious complications we see come not from the lens itself but from a lapse in hygiene, or from wearing it longer than prescribed.
- Hands washed and thoroughly dried before every handling
- Never tap water on a lens or in its case
- Do not sleep in lenses unless explicitly prescribed
- No swimming, showering or sauna with lenses in
- A monthly lens is thrown away after a month, opened or not
- A red, painful or blurred eye: take the lens out and be seen the same day
Screens and eye strain
Screens do not damage your eyes, but they genuinely tire them: in front of a screen we blink about three times less often, and the eye stays locked at one fixed distance for hours. Hence the stinging, the dryness and that smeared vision at the end of the day. It is not a disease, it is a habit — and habits can be changed.
- The 20-20-20 rule: every 20 minutes, look 6 metres away for 20 seconds
- Screen an arm’s length away, top edge just below eye level
- Blink deliberately, several times in a row
- Light the room rather than staring at a screen in the dark
- For children, alternate screens with time outdoors: daylight slows myopia
Protecting your eyes from the sun
Ultraviolet light damages the surface of the eye and the lens inside it, and the exposure adds up across a lifetime: what you take at twenty still counts at sixty. Sunglasses are therefore not a fashion accessory. Tinted lenses without a UV filter are actually worse than nothing, because they open the pupil and let more ultraviolet in.
- Check for the CE mark and the category: 3 for everyday use, 4 in the mountains or at sea
- Protect children above all — their lens filters less UV
- A wraparound frame cuts the light coming in from the sides
- Never look directly at the sun, eclipses included, even for seconds
Having your eyes checked regularly
Most eye conditions do not hurt and cannot be seen early on: the other eye compensates, and you notice nothing at all. A regular check is not a formality, then — it is the only way to catch things in time.
- A first examination around age 3, then when starting primary school
- Every 2 to 3 years for adults with no known problem
- Every year after 50, or with a family history of glaucoma
- Every year with diabetes, even without any symptoms
- At home, now and then: cover one eye, then the other, and compare
What should be seen straight away
Some signs do not creep in — they appear. When they do, do not book something for three weeks’ time: call the practice the same day.
- Sudden loss of vision, in one eye or both
- Intense eye pain, sometimes with headache or nausea
- Sudden floaters, black spots or flashes of light
- A veil or dark curtain moving across part of your vision
- A red, painful eye that has not improved within 24 hours
- Any injury to the eye, or a chemical splash
This page gives general information and is not a substitute for a consultation. Only an examination can establish a diagnosis and tailor treatment to your situation.
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