What causes the glare that’s affecting my vision?

Answers by Dr. Mitchell Gossman, an ophthalmologist at Eye Associates of Central Minnesota, located in St. Cloud

Glare in your vision can be brought on by discomfort from bright lights or decreased or disturbed vision associated with lights.  Contributed AI-Generated Stock photo by Vecteezy

What causes the glare that’s affecting my vision?

“Glare” means one of two things. First, it may mean discomfort with bright lights. For example, driving to work eastbound at sunrise, the bright sun can be uncomfortable. Or, skiing on a bright sunny day with white snow can be uncomfortable. These situations are normal, and are your body’s way of protecting your retina from damage from looking at the sun. Discomfort with light may also be a symptom of eye disease, such as inflammation or dry eyes. In this case, a better term than “glare” is the medical term “photophobia.”

“Glare” may also be defined as decreased or disturbed vision associated with lights. Here are some causes of this type of glare:

• Cataract. When light is focused by the natural lens of your eye, it allows light pass through, in focus, undisturbed by the lens. With a cataract, light is “scattered” during its passage to the back of the eye and the retina, and this results in many symptoms, including haloes around lights, streaks of light, and starburst. If these symptoms are bothersome, cataract surgery might help, especially if the symptoms are new and the cataracts are significant.

• Posterior capsule opacification after cataract surgery. If your vision was fine after cataract surgery, but you’re now seeing glare, haloes, streaks, and starbursts around lights and generally blurrier vision, it is very commonly due to development of a cloudy film behind the lens implant. This can be treated with a laser procedure in the office, and it should return the vision to the vision that was present after cataract surgery.

• Reflections on glasses lenses. It’s a commonly misunderstood notion that an antireflective coating on the front of glasses will improve night vision and decrease glare. It does not. Its purpose is to reduce reflections on the lens that interferes with others being able to see your eyes, so it’s a cosmetic benefit. In fact, antireflective coatings permit more light to pass through the glasses lens, not less. However, an antireflective coating on the back of the lens can reduce reflections from the inside of the lens that can reflect into your eye and cause glare.

• Dirty or damaged glasses lenses.

• Inaccurate prescription lenses.

• Large pupils. When driving at night, the pupils are larger, and the extra light being admitted into the eye can be more uncomfortable. Also, since the larger the pupil the more imprecise focusing of light into your eye, the more problems may occur with bright light sources being surrounded by the same glare abnormalities such as haloes and starbursts. These symptoms tend to be worse when it’s raining due to reflections from the road and the rain on the windshield. Therefore, if your entire life you’ve had trouble with night driving, and now you have cataracts, your surgeon has to be careful about promising that glare symptoms will be gone.

Find out more

Dr. Mitchell Gossman is a comprehensive ophthalmologist, along with Dr. Melanie Thares, an optometrist, at Eye Associates of Central Minnesota. The office is located at 628 Roosevelt Road, Suite 101, in St. Cloud. To make an appointment or to learn more, call 320-774-3789 or email info@eaofcm.com.

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