I use the coloured lenses. I am 49 years old, with a lot of university study behind me and a lot of reading as my main hobby.

I only found out about the lenses a few years ago. Meanwhile I have spent most of my life, i.e. until then, coping with a problem that I didn't even realise does not affect most people. It got worse still as my eyesight started deteriorating with age. In 1995 I spent an extremely miserable half year working in the worst possible light conditions - no daylight, only undiffused fluorescent lights, and a very low ceiling which placed the lights very close to our heads. I had terrible headaches and nausea while working there and had to keep going outside for doses of daylight just so that I could keep working.

When I found out about Scotopic Sensitivity Syndrome it made perfect sense to me because I had suffered all my life from trying to focus on the print which jiggles around on the page and which has a little shadow/halo around each letter.

The issue which dianavan mentioned about glare while reading is exactly what the lenses help to correct. By using tinted lenses, and also by using tinted paper the contrast between the black print and the white page is reduced thereby reducing the glare and making it easier to pin the letters down. It makes it easier to pin down the line of text I am reading instead of jumping around from one line to the next and back again.

SueB, if you don't know about the scientific credentials of the New Scientist magazine, then I suggest you investigate it a little more before using the scattergun approach to labelling the article which Ellenpoly referred to as "pseudoscientific mumbo jumbo" and "outdated hogwash". The New Scientist publishes short articles about the latest scientific experiments and theories. They are all presumably reputable scientists and not your average backyard quack.

It is not exactly scientific to label it as mumbo jumbo and hogwash unless you show us your own in depth analysis on how you arrived at that conclusion.

You are correct to say that the lenses make reading easier - not more "comfortable" but easier. Scotopic Sensitivity Syndrome is often but not always associated with dyslexia - I'm not sure how or why - so if it makes reading easier, i.e. it helps to ease one of the associated problems which is an obstacle to reading then why not use it. It costs very little to get the evaluation, and then I just have to pay for the coloured overlays when I get a new set of reading glasses. The evaluation and the initial overlays were done for me by Professor Greg Robinson who is associated with our local university whose practice is situated within the Special Education unit.

Not all dyslexics have SSS but the ones who do can ease their problems by using the lenses. Maybe your child doesn't have SSS and doesn't need the Irlen lenses. Maybe it would be worthwhile to get the evaluation done to find out for sure. Would you be happy finding out later that your child could have been helped earlier by using the lenses?

Helen