Man, that's an oldie but a goodie.

"It's OK to go swimming

or take a shower in contact lenses."

All right, everybody does it.

But they really shouldn't.

"Styes are contagious."

No!

Not at all.

Styes are not contagious.

And you don't get them from pools.

And you don't get them from rubbing your eyes.

Rupa Wong: Doorknobs.

Jenifer Bossert: Kissing others.

No, you don't get them from any of those things.

Aloha, my name is Dr. Jenifer Bossert.

I am the optometrist at the Honolulu Eye Clinic.

I've been in practice for 30 years,

and my specialty is contact lenses.

And aloha, everyone.

I am Dr. Rupa Wong.

I am a board-certified ophthalmologist.

I've been in private practice here in Hawaii for 13 years

working alongside this wonderful lady here.

I specialize in pediatric ophthalmology

and adult strabismus.

And today we are here to debunk myths about vision.

We're going to start off with

debunking myths that we used to think were true.

"Reading in the dark or while lying down

will damage your vision."

No, this is a myth.

It does not damage your vision.

And my oldest son reads in the dark all the time.

My mother, obviously knows I'm an ophthalmologist,

still comes to my house and tells me,

"Your son should not read in the dark."

Not true.

Because people need good light to see better,

they assumed maybe that when you're reading in the dark,

because it is usually more challenging,

maybe they thought that was straining your eyes.

People confuse those issues with damaging your eyes.

"Eating carrots will improve your eyesight."

I have actually just studied

where the origin of this myth came from.

It's really interesting.

So, it was basically a campaign during World War II

because the British air fighter pilots

had this radar technology

to be able to detect the German targets.

But they didn't want the Germans to know

that they had the radar technology,

so they just said that their air pilots

were eating a lot of carrots

and therefore had good night vision.

How fascinating!

See? I learned something today.

I love it!

Wong: Vitamin A is very important for the metabolism

that's being performed in your retina.

Bossert: A, C, E, magnesium,

lutein, omega-3s,

those are the common ones that we all consider important

for optimum eye health.

Zinc.

Zinc.

Wong: All of these vitamins can help halt

the progression of macular degeneration,

but in the studies it didn't demonstrate

any more effect for people like us,

that don't have any macular degeneration.

"Wearing someone else's glasses will ruin your vision."

If a child, really younger than 13,

is wearing someone else's glasses,

it can ruin their vision if it is completely off.

Because if it's promoting blurry vision,

that's going to inhibit the growth

of the connections between the eyes and the brain.

So kids under 13, they are in a special period

of their vision development called the critical period.

So, absolutely, I never, ever recommend

that children wear anybody else's glasses.

But for adults, it's a little bit of a different story.

Bossert: With adults, it isn't going to harm your eyes,

but it can contribute to eye fatigue,

eye strain, headaches.

So, yes, we always encourage everybody

to get their annual checkups,

wear their own glasses,

and keep them updated.

"Sitting too close to the TV is bad for your eyesight."

Typically a parent wants their child

to move back from the television,

and it's a total myth.

And it doesn't harm an adult's eyes, either.

So, when I have a parent ask me that in the exam,

I encourage them to bring them in

so that we can actually check their child

and just see if it's a habit that the child has

or whether they actually have

an underlying nearsighted process occurring.

If they're sitting too close to the television,

then I'm concerned that maybe they've been

developing nearsightedness.

A young child doesn't know that that's happening.

Just because your parents are nearsighted

does not mean 100% you're going to be nearsighted.

Several studies have shown

that two hours a day of sunlight is helpful

at preventing nearsightedness progression.

So I always tell my patients to get outdoors,

but it's not so easy in other parts of the country or world.

"If you cross your eyes, they'll stay that way."

Man, that's an oldie but a goodie, I think.

I remember my grandmother telling me.

We were out running around, and kids all playing,

and my grandmother saying,

"Your eyes are going to stay that way!"

Of course, that is actually

my area of specialty, is crossed eyes.

That's what I do surgery for, to fix them.

And I can tell you, I've never had to operate on anybody

who crossed their eyes in intentionally

and it got stuck that way.

So that's a complete myth.

Some people are born with it.

We call that congenital esotropia.

Typically, if you're born with it,

you're born with crossed eyes.

Sometimes people develop it because the eye is blind

for whatever reason, a separate reason.

So if they're young, then the eye

tends to cross in with the blind eye.

If they're older and they sustain some kind of trauma

or injury to the eye to cause it to become blind,

then the eye wanders out.

'Cause I've seen so many patients

that have come from other eye doctors

who have been told for years,

No. 1, "Your insurance doesn't cover it."

No. 2, "You're too old for this surgery."

I've operated on a 95-year-old.

"Squinting is bad for your eyes."

We do know that when you squint,

you tend to be able to see a little bit better

when you're nearsighted.

Something called the pinhole effect.

So that could be how that myth got started.

A parent might see their child squinting

and then think that it was the squinting

that actually caused the nearsightedness,

but it was the opposite.

The nearsightedness caused the squinting.

"You will become dependent on your glasses

if you wear them too much."

As someone who now has started to need reading glasses,

it is really hard to not believe this myth.

I, when I take my reading glasses off,

I swear I could see the iPhone way better.

Bossert: It's not that the glasses made your vision worse,

it's just that your brain got used to having

good, sharp vision when you put them on.

So then when you take them off,

your brain's like,

"No! I want them back again!

I like seeing clearly!"

"You can't wear your contacts

if you have astigmatism."

This is definitely not true.

I still hear that in this day and age,

despite media campaigns,

despite information dissemination.

People still believe that if they have astigmatism,

they won't be able to wear contact lenses.

Or that they're going to have to be hard contact lenses.

Yes. Because 30 years ago, it was true,

that really the only way that you could mask

that astigmatism was to take a hard lens

and put it on the eye.

But now, daily disposables, I can correct

2.75 units of astigmatism,

which is a lot.

And in a reusable contact lens,

I can go up to 5.75.

I even have a brand-new option

that if you are over 40

and need reading glasses,

if you have astigmatism,

you can even wear a bifocal contact lens

that corrects for astigmatism now.

But they are more difficult to fit

because they interact with the eyelid,

the shape of the eye.

So sometimes we'll have to go through

two or three lens designs

to find the best one for the patient.

But it's pretty rare that we can't find something

in this day and age.

Wong: Now we're gonna talk about

myths we hear all the time.

"Staring at a screen all day

will make your eyesight worse."

Well,

the jury's still a little bit out on this one.

Yes, anecdotally, we perceive that people

that spend longer hours on a screen

are the ones that are more likely to end up nearsighted.

But studies don't prove that.

And particularly with COVID,

with COVID and homeschooling, online schooling,

we've seen a huge increase in parents asking us,

"Do I need to get my kid blue blockers?"

Well, the answer is no.

There was a small study that came out and said that,

yes, it could help decrease fatigue.

But, like any study, we need to take those small studies

and turn them into large studies

to really truly get facts and figures

that hold out for the larger population.

So when they redid the study, it came out 50-50.

It just really wasn't proven

to be statistically significant.

Wong: And that's why we always recommend the 20-20-20 rule.

People need to take breaks

every 20 minutes for 20 seconds

where they look at something 20 feet away.

"Only people with bad eyesight need eye exams."

That is definitely a myth.

There's all sorts of conditions that still you have --

Retinal holes, retinal tears, retinal detachments.

That's another thing, where people always think,

mistakenly, that they've had LASIK

and as if LASIK has corrected their eyeballs.

And it hasn't. It's just made their vision better.

But they still have the pathology, the retinal issues,

that they still require exams once a year.

Bossert: People think that they're going to

the eye doctor for their vision.

Eye doctors would tell you that you're going

to the eye doctor for your eye health.

Because if you don't maintain the eye health,

then you're not going to be able

to maintain good eye vision

for the 100 years that you're present on this earth.

"You won't get glaucoma if you have perfect vision."

Glaucoma is something that's asymptomatic.

So you can have perfect 20-20 vision

and have the absolute worst end-stage glaucoma.

Glaucoma is typically high pressure inside the eye,

which causes damage to the optic nerve of the eye.

Bossert: And in the beginning,

there are no signs whatsoever.

So really the only way that we can detect glaucoma

is to come in for your annual eye examination.

And there are a series of tests that we do

in the examination itself

that allow us to screen for glaucoma.