Winter Eye Care Advice

Wear Your Sunglasses

Ultraviolet rays don’t pack their bags for warmer climes when summer ends, so the arrival of winter is no time to put away your sunglasses. It is as important to protect your eyes in the colder seasons as any other time of year, though the blazing hot sun of summer does serve as a better reminder for us to don sunglasses than the cloudy gray skies of winter! Yet wearing sunglasses during outdoor activities in wintertime offers your eyes the best defense against the sun’s workaholic nature. At ECI, our eye doctors remind our eye care patients that protecting their vision from UV damage is a year-round occupation.

When the sun is not shining its UV rays can still pose a hazard to your eyes, but it is particularly important in winter to wear sunglasses on days when the sun is bouncing off a bright snow. Whether you are sledding down a snowy hillside or taking a trip to Tahoe to ski or snowboard, spending any time in the bright reflected sunlight without sunglasses is harmful to your eyes.

Choosing Your New Sunglasses

To safeguard your eyes in every month of the year our ECI optometrist recommends purchasing a pair of durable sunglasses with strong UV protection. When it comes to choosing the right pair of sunglasses, you’ll have a few other decisions to make as well. In addition to UV protection, the style, shape, and color of your new glasses matters, and you also have options to consider about the many recent developments in lens technologies. For example, if you like outdoor sports, our optician can discuss the option of adding anti-reflective coatings to your sunglasses to minimize reflected glare. You may also want to consider gradient lenses, which can be useful for driving as the lenses are tinted only at the top of the lens to protect your eyes from overhead sunlight. Contact us to speak to an ECI optician about the different lens options we can do for you. We’re here to help you find the eyewear that best matches your needs.

How ECI Does It

If you wear eyeglasses for reading or to enhance your vision we will schedule you for an eye exam if you haven’t had one recently, then work with you to create prescription sunglasses that you can use throughout the year.

When you visit an ECI Optical Shop in Santa Rosa for eyeglasses, including sunglasses, you can also choose designer eyewear from collections created by Coach, Ray-Ban, Michael Kors, Silhouette, Cazal, and Maui Jim Suns. We will manufacture sunglasses from any of these eyewear designers to match your prescription, and you can choose polarized or non-polarized lenses with most of these brands. We’ll use our on-site computerized lab to manufacture your new sunglasses and we can complete most orders within a few days — or in plenty of time for you to ski down Heavenly in your new designer frames.

Remember: Wear your sunglasses in winter, spring, summer, and fall!