Monitor Your Symptoms
The first step in diagnosing eye strain is monitoring your symptoms. Use a visual analog pain scale to track these symptoms and their severity. Since symptoms typically occur after the strain has had a chance to build, it is important to record the activities you performed in the hour leading up to the onset of the symptoms.
Identify the Causes
With the timeline of activities leading up to your symptoms established, you can start identifying the stressor tasks. These are the tasks that hold the underlying causes of eye strain. When you have identified a probable cause for eye strain, use a simple trial and error process to verify it.
Remove the task from your daily activity, limit the intensity or length of the task, or divide the task into small increments with long breaks in between. Then, see if the symptom persists. If that is not practical, try moving the task to a different time of day, or perform it in a different location. This will help you identify if the symptom is caused by the task itself or the circumstances in which it is performed.
For example, you might get headaches from reading through your e-mail an hour before lunch, or your pain could be the result of low blood sugar that will be fixed once you eat.
Tests
There are no specific tests that will determine if you have eye strain. However you should have a regular eye exam. Ensuring you have the right corrective lenses will reduce the strain on your ciliary body muscles and therefore reduce eye strain.
Medical/Professional Diagnosis
If you feel you are suffering from chronic or severe eye strain, your optician can help you determine if it is based on your environment or your eye anatomy. He or she can also help you with medical, surgical and mechanical (i.e. eye glasses) solutions to your eye strain.
