Published on 12, July, 2020
I use a coloured film overlay when I read books, and I have my kindle set up in blue shade mode with a colour tint. This helps hugely with my dyslexia. Husband was looking for a new overlay for me and found some stuff on Irlen syndrome so I wondered if any of you knew anything about it? Positive or negative.
My wife has this. We had a local lady come out and assess her (with a big case of different coloured lenses) and she's been wearing the tinted glasses for about 6 years now. She says they help her concentrate as it reduces the light for her; she has dyslexia.
We had the lady come out a few years later and tested one of my children, and said they had it too. When I told his teacher (who was also the SEN co-ordinator for the school) she pretty much laughed in our faces and said that, since you pay them for the assessment and the lenses, they'll say everyone has it.
But, my wife gets benefit from it. You can tell when she's not wearing her glasses because she gets tired quickly - it's actually noticable - like her brain is fogged up or something, and she starts squinting and loses concentration with whatever she's talking about. When the light is reduced, she returns to normal. And it helps stabilise the letters when she's reading. She can definitely concentrate better with them on.
I wouldn't recommend something if I didn't think it would help. My wife isn't the sort of person who would say it worked just because she wanted it to work. You can tell the difference when she's not wearing them.
There's a list of UK places that do it here.
And in case you wondered about the process, this is what it was for us:
'Phone someone up to come for a home visit (she's about 2 miles down the road), get diagnosed and get the correct tint (all of this is done in the initial assessment), pay for the assessment and lenses, wait 6 weeks for the lenses to ship from America, take them into Vision Express, choose some frames and ask them to put the lenses into the frames, wait a couple of weeks for them to be sent off and arrive back. Our local Vision Express did used to cut the lenses themselves but now this is apparently done centrally.
I didn't get my screening done at Specsavers, I can't say how good their screening is just to make things clear. My process was similar to yours. Specsavers did make a mess of my lens fitting though.
I got my first pair and took them to Specsavers to be done within the hour. They did it within the hour and they made a right mess of them! Glad to hear Vision Express were better! I took my second set of lenses to a more competent optician!
Glad to hear your wife is finding it beneficial. I'm not one to fall for the snakeoil cures. I do find it beneficial. I too get more tired without them on. It's mainly because I have to concentrate more.