How Irlen Filters Have Changed My Life so Far

Unfortunately for people with Irlen Syndrome, most people don't know about it. When I was a young child, I was asked to read an eye chart. The first thing the doctor noticed was my very noticeable amblyopia. While this was a concern for me even as a young child, what I found more noticeable was that I could not see letters as clearly as everything else. I swore to the doctor that I did not need glasses because I could see everything else just fine, just not these letters. Of course, no one believed a 7 year old child. So from age 7 all the way to my teenage years, I was stuck wearing glasses that were not right for me. Each time that I went to the eye doctor, I was scared of what glasses I would come out with. Most of the glasses gave me headaches. A few made things so incredibly blurry that I could not even walk around. I was told to try them and in 2 weeks I would adjust. I never did adjust as they had hoped, but instead I adjusted in my own way. I would take off my glasses the second I got to school. When I got back in my parents' car, I would already have the glasses slipped back on. When I got home, I took them off because I said that I "did not need to see" at home. In reality, none of these glasses actually helped me to see.

The problem was in the eye chart. I can look at a beautiful flower and see every detail perfectly. Off in the distance I can see what type of bird is resting in a tree. Yet when it comes down to the sharp contrast of black letters on a white glossy background, I cannot read them. The letters will move. The white background sparkles. The chart hurts my eyes, I cannot read the lines correctly. I might read a letter from the correct line and then end up reading one from the line below it because I do not even realize the difference. As a child, I would try to describe this to the eye doctors. I always got looks like I was crazy. No eye doctor ever believed me. I tried specialists that I was seeing for the amblyopia and later I tried a couple of the chain store eye doctors. None of them had heard of anything like this.

So What Is Irlen Syndrome?

Irlen Syndrome is not an eye problem, it is actually a perceptual problem that involves the brain's inability to process certain visual information. However, if eye doctors would have known about this syndrome, I probably would have been diagnosed at age 7 when I first tried to explain that I really could see a lot better than they thought. Unfortunately, Irlen Syndrome affects more than just the ability to read a simple eye chart correctly. While there are variations and not everyone is the same, reading abilities are generally affected. People with Irlen Syndrome are also generally sensitive to light, especially fluorescent lights. Depth perception is also generally a problem. These general problems also lead to problems paying attention, discomfort, and lack of motivation.

I had all the signs yet there was no one to see them. I was put into special physical education classes partially because of the amblyopia, but mostly because I lacked depth perception. I was always getting hit in the face with things like baseballs and tether balls. Everyone told me this lack of depth perception was because I could only see out of one eye. While that is partially true of course, I now get fantastic 3D vision with my good eye. I was always in the slow reading group and it was painful for me to listen to the other kids stumble through what they were reading. I knew I could do better than that, but the words would not stay still so when my turn came, I read just like the rest of them. Soon I did not want to be picked to read. If I knew the teacher would pick on everyone to read, I would usually memorize a paragraph while others were reading and when we got to it I would shoot my hand in the air to volunteer to read that specific passage. During silent reading, I stared at the book and watched the spaces between the letters move and form into pictures. When my family went shopping, I would sometimes faint due to the flashing of the fluorescent lights. By middle school, I was staying up until 1am to finish my homework. By high school, that turned into 4am. I thought everyone spent that much time on their homework.

Colored Overlays

During my limited spare time, I was volunteering as much as I could. Through some volunteer work, I met a girl who wore pink tinted glasses. Eventually, we became friends and I got to telling her something about my troubles with reading. She listened and then told me I had to have exactly what she had. So she told me about Irlen Syndrome (formerly known as Scotopic Sensitivity Syndrome). At first I didn't think that could be me. So she sent me home with a book, and 5 months later when I finished reading it, I couldn't believe how much this fit me. Immediately I made an appointment to be screened for Irlen Syndrome. It turned out that I was in the severe range. That day, I got a colored overlay that helped me to see the page more like how normal people would view it. While I still could not read for hours like most people, I could read for more than 5 minutes without the words moving off the page. I was fascinated. When the overlay was placed over an eye chart, I could see the letters as well. The contrast had been taken away.

Irlen Filters

My friend had told me that despite my amazement with the colored overlays, I was about to get an even bigger surprise. She tried to describe to me what seeing in 3D was like. But as everything I saw looked like it was plastered to a window right in front of my eyes, I could not even imagine what she spoke of. What I saw in television and video games looked more 3D to me than real life did. After a few tries on getting the right color tints for my filters, I was shocked at the world of 3D. It was like seeing the space in between objects. Learning to drive had been extremely difficult for me. I relied on my ears a lot to judge distances. With the Irlen filters, I could see how far ahead of me a car was. I could make left turns without waiting forever until the person behind me was ready to rear end me. I was so amazed by how the world looks. I still am. What I saw before was basically one thing at a time. That one thing was usually whatever was moving. If you were having a conversation with me and I was looking at your face, I would have seen either mostly your eyes, mostly your nose, or mostly your hair. Only one item could be in focus at a time. With my Irlen filters, now I will see your whole face at the same time. It is amazing to me. Plants are especially fascinating for me to look at. I look at flowers and leaves with the awe of a child because they are still so very new to me. For the first time in my life, when I see in real life is not the same as what I can capture in a photo.

I am still a slower than average reader and I'm definitely not going to be in the Olympics anytime soon. With the filters and the overlays combined though, I can usually get through a 10 page chapter in an hour on a small book with some pictures in it. If I'm reading a textbook, one page used to easily take me 30 minutes. Now a page of a textbook generally takes me 15 to 20 minutes to read. I can read menus for myself instead of having to ask the waiter what I should get. When I read sheet music, the notes don't jump lines as frequently anymore. And while I still see a constant sparkle, it is less noticeable now (you know how some people have a constant ringing in their ears? well, it's like that but with my eyes... I cannot tell you if it is sprinkling or not outside because it would look the same whether it was or wasn't).

My favorite part is that now I do not get as many headaches as I used to. The filters greatly helped to calm my headaches. I can even go shopping in a department store without feeling like I will hit the floor at any minute (shopping with me brings a whole new meaning to "shop until you drop").

While Irlen filters are not actually magic, they seem like magic to me. The filters have opened up a whole new world for me. A 3D world. A world in which I can read considerably more than I could before. A world that is not plagued with headaches. Irlen filters have changed my life in a big way. I hope that by informing others of my success that this will help someone else to realize that they too could be helped.