UK Keratoconus Self-Help and Support Association

Luckily for me I work for a really understanding company that are more than willing to help me with my condition. They have even asked me to tell them what they need to do to accomodate my condition.

Due to extended use of my computer I have been developing headaches quite early in the day and come 3pm I'm about as much use as a chocolate teapot.

So I asked for a solution and was given it in the form of an RSI Guard. Sounds strange I know but it's helping a lot and my headaches are almost non existent. This guard shuts down my PC every hour and forces me to take a break allowing my eyes that much needed rest.

I have the basic system which costs £40 but can be used across 5 PCs including at home, for which I have permission to do. Follow the link to learn a bit more, it's a bit fiddly to set up but well worth the effort.

http://rsiguard.com/

Good idea, but think my solution is cheaper.

50p cooking timer from the market, just turn to any time between 1 and 60 minutes and go away from the pc when it dings

I suffered from bad headaches for 4 months, prior to KC diagnosis, in October last year. After having 2 lots of crosslinking (1 per eye) and INTACS, I'm still getting headaches and cannot focus on a screen, unless my nose is pressed up against it. I've been off work for 5 weeks now. I do not want to return as everything I do revolves around the PC and although my employer is reasonably understanding, I know that I will end up sat in front of the PC.
I'm intolerant to contacts, so I'm wondering what to do. I did take lots of breaks at work before, so not sure the guard will work. Are there anymore suggestions?

Louise,

Get intouch with the RNIB and Action for the Blind and ask for a work place assesment. They will make recomendations on visual aids to help you uses a pc without your nose pressed against the screen.

Items such as large monitors, speach recognition, text to speech, CCTV camera to help enlarge documents and so on.

These groups are there to help your emplyer make reasonable adjsutments we need and to assist the employee in equal measure.

Any changes are coverd to a large exten by the Acess to work scheme and more information about this is available from you local Job Center plus. Basically they will pay upto 80% of the cost of making any adjustments you need!

Download the employers leaflet which includes some of this information adn discuss it with your employers. This helps then understand what is out there to help them help you and it shows you are comitted to getting back to working for them.

Let me know if you need any further information.

Thanks very much Gareth. I'll look into that. I think I need to get a job out of an office, quite difficult to escape PC's these days though!

Hello....

I am currently suffering from countless headaches...I do feel them more frequently when working with my PC (IT student) but lately it's become more severe and I feel them more often even when not facing a screen.

Has anyone else got other suggestion as to how I can resolve this issue...it's really made my life change to the worse in so many dif ways :S

PS: I've done other tests and seems like I'm pretty healthy so I'm supposing that these headaches are caused by my eyes.

Thanks in advance!