Sports Specific Vision Care Tips

In today’s digital age, our hobbies may include reading on a tablet, watching TV, and/or playing video games. What about outdoor activities? What various outdoor activities do you do?
 

SNOW

Skiing, snowboarding, cross-country skiing, and sledding. Being on and around SNOW is difficult on the eyes. The glare from the horizontal white snow can cause extreme glare that can disable your vision and/or cause damage to your eyes. Wearing high-quality sunglasses, ski goggles, and/or wearing a hat with a rim are some things that you can do to protect your eyes from UV rays that deflect off of the snow’s surface.
 

WATER

Sailing, Fishing, swimming, surfing, and enjoying the shores of the beach. Polarized suns, good quality swim goggles, or contact lenses with UV filtration are ideal. When sailing, sunglasses can protect your eyes from wind and debris. When fishing, polarized sunglasses will aid you in seeing below the surface of the ocean or lake in order to spot your fish. For swimming, the key is to get either prescription to swim goggles, if you need an Rx, or use daily disposable contact lenses along with Plano swim goggles. If you do not need an Rx to see, simply using artificial tears to rinse and lubricate your eyes after a good swim will help keep your cornea and conjunctiva stay healthy.
 

CONCRETE and GYM

Tennis, Cycling, Basketball. Visors, Sports specific high wrap sunglasses, or Rx sports eyewear. With tennis, low-tint sunglasses will help with glare especially if you are playing outdoors. UV protection is a must. With cycling, wind protection is just as important as sun protection. And they will keep bugs out of your eyes! With basketball indoors or outdoors, since it is a close-contact sport, wearing goggles or sports glasses with clear lenses will protect your eyes from a player’s finger, elbow, or head.
 

GRASS

Golf, Soccer, and Football. Contact lenses. Better peripheral vision. Though sports eyeglasses can be made with large, wraparound-style lenses, most prescription eyeglasses have small, relatively flat lenses and small frames. This significantly limits peripheral vision essential for many sports. For golf, I recommend sunglasses with a green tint or a bronze tint. For soccer (futbol) and football, contact lenses are the best option as they are close contact or contact sports were wearing a frame will get in the way of play.
 

Protect Your Eyes

Here are a few statistics from "Protective Eyewear for Young Athletes," a joint policy statement recently issued by the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) and the American Academy of Ophthalmology (AAO):

• More than 42,000 sports and recreation-related eye injuries are reported each year in the United States.

• More than 70 percent of these eye injuries occur in people under 25, roughly 40 percent occur in people under 15 and eight percent occur in children under 5.

• Baseball and basketball are associated with the most eye injuries among players ages 5 to 24.

• Proper-fitting sports eyewear can reduce the risk of serious sports-related eye injuries by 90 percent.
   

For these reasons, pediatricians and eye doctors strongly recommend protective eyewear for anyone who participates in sports in which there is a risk of eye injury.

Whatever your indoor or outdoor hobbies are, I invite you to come in for an eye exam.  From there, we can determine if you need a prescription to see more clearly and check for cataracts and retinopathy, etc. After the exam, our optical staff can help you select the perfect eyewear for you based on your specific visual demands and the hobbies you enjoy.

Author: Dr. Irene M. Lin-Dilorinzo

Dr. Irene M. Lin-Dilorinzo has over 29 years of experience as an optometrist.

In 1987, Dr. Lin completed her undergraduate education at California State Polytechnic University Pomona, earning a Bachelor of Science Degree with Magna Cum Laude honors.  She majored in Biological Sciences and minored in Zoological Sciences.

In 1992, Dr. Lin graduated from the accredited Southern California College of Optometry with a Doctor of Optometry degree. Her research was in Sports Vision and she did an externship at Fort Ord Army Hospital in Monterey, California as well as a family eye care externship at Baldwin Park Optometric Center in San Gabriel Valley, California.

During the first eight years of her career as a clinical optometrist for a multi-specialty medical group, Dr. Lin examined patients alongside other optometrists, ophthalmologists, and a vast array of physicians, from pediatricians to OB/Gyns to Internists. Her work experience in a team setting continues to influence Dr. Lin to take care of the whole person, not just their eyes. She then became an Independent Doctor in a corporate setting while also working part-time for various private practices in the Los Angeles and San Gabriel Valley areas. Her career journey could end there. However, her dream was to own her own private practice. Monarch Bay Optometry was founded in 2004.

Dr. Lin is married to Robert and loves to rescue dogs from the local animal shelter or rescue. She is currently looking to adopt or rescue a new dog to welcome into her family. Dr. Lin also enjoys collecting sneakers and has built a good collection of over 50 sneakers, primarily of Nike, Jordan, and Yeezy.