Why Does Your Vision Get Blurry At Night?

Posted on: 6 April 2016

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Can you see clearly during the day, but find that your vision starts to blur later in the evening? This is not an issue you should ignore or hope goes away on its own. Here's a look at three possible causes of your blurry night vision.

Vitamin A Deficiency

Vitamin A is a nutrient that your eyes need in order to function properly. If you're deficient in this vitamin, one of the primary symptoms will be night blindness. This does not mean that you'll go completely blind at night (though some patients almost do), but rather that your vision will become more strained in the evening. Sometimes you might see bright spots in your visual field.

If you think you may be vitamin A deficient, consider taking a vitamin A supplement according to the instructions on the package. The RDA for vitamin A is 900 micrograms per day for men and 700 micrograms per day for women. You can also start eating more foods that are high in vitamin A, including carrots, sweet potatoes, fish, liver, and bell peppers.

Screen Exhaustion

If you stare at a computer screen for many hours each day, as do most office workers, it could just be that your eyes are very tired by nighttime. Try going a day or two without looking at screens, and see if your night vision is better. If so, you can probably blame the screens. Here are a few strategies to help reduce screen exhaustion so your evening vision does not deteriorate so badly:

  • Take breaks from looking at your screen every hour
  • Turn your brightness way down and your contrast way up
  • Purchase and wear a pair of computer glasses, which block the most straining wavelengths of light to protect your eyes

Eye Dryness

Do your eyes also feel dry and scratchy at the end of the day? Chances are, the dryness is causing the blurry vision. If you can take measures to fight eye dryness, your night vision will improve, too. Try carrying moisturizing eye drops and using them a few times per day. If you wear contacts, take them out as soon as you get home and switch to glasses. For ongoing eye dryness, your eye doctor may recommend medications to boost your tear production. There are also little devices called punctal plugs that your eye doctor can insert into your tear ducts. These keep tears from being reabsorbed so quickly, which increases the moisture levels of your eyes.

To learn more, contact an optometrist like Baldwin Optical & Hearing Aid Co.