Anyone here wear Irlen glasses?

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To what extent do they help you, and in what sorts of ways?

I'm overly sensitive to light with short wavelength and I was prescribed Irlen glasses to help with that. It was only a marginal relief, though, so I stopped wearing the glasses soon because they are so darn UNFASHIONABLE. This might sound weird to you, but I'm NOT going to wear something that makes people point and laugh, unless there's a vitally important reason. Irlen glasses are a bit of a last resort in my opinion - I'd rather risk the occasional public meltdown than wear something that will ruin ANY attempt to "blend in" with people. I own several very nice fashionable pairs of sunglasses with a very light orange tint that do almost the same job while not making me look too weird.
Someone with a more severe oversensitivity might actually need Irlen glasses, though. If you have a meltdown every single time you're exposed to fluorescent light, get one. Otherwise, avoid the social stigma at all costs.

How ugly are they? My understanding is that you can have them put into your choice of frames and the only odd thing about them is that the glass happens to be tinted. I assumed they'd look a bit like sunglasses, although maybe a bit of a funky colour.

I have been diagnosed with scotopic sensitivity syndrome, and the diagnoser said that Irlen glasses would really benefit me, and that people find them 'life changing'. I have problems with things I'm looking at not staying still but pulsating and getting lighter and darker. It makes me dizzy. And I feel very unwell under fluorescent lights. So if the Irlen glasses can really fix this, then it would make a huge difference to me. I hadn't realised they might cause such a social stigma though.

My health insurance only covered four different frames to choose from, and all of them vere very, extremely noticeable and unfashionable to the point of esthetically crippling. If you can get the tinted glass into a frame that's fashionable and suits your face, that would be something entirely different - in that case, go for it!
I was just very lucky to find fashionable sunglasses in the exact color I needed - and of course, sunglasses are socially accepted at least under many circumstances. It's still considered eccentric to wear them inside, of course, though if you can pull it off as some kind of fashion statement, that will work.
(For your information: One of my special interests is fashion design. The people I hang out with are often very interested in fashion. Wearing obviously hideous glasses would be a major social problem.)
The social stigma... It's difficult to explain. When you meet strangers and the first thing they notice about you is something EXTREMELY optically unusual, they'll consider you a freak and won't want to talk to you. It's like wearing your underwear on your head or something. The first impression counts a lot. So you'll prefer people to think "okay, so this person likes fashionable tinted sunglasses" to "okay, this person is wearing monstrous glasses in a freak color, what the heck is wrong with him/her?". Of course, the difference between these extremes is often very subtle. So if you decide to get Irlen glasses fit into a frame of your choice, take care you take someone with a profound understanding of fashion with you.

Well, I think a fashion tip can be gleaned from Dame Edna...
If you're going to wear outlandish glasses, complement them with outlandish hair.

Juuuust joking!

It sounds like the glasses may really be a godsend for you, capriwim. Looking unwell and on the verge of puking is much more socially disconcerting than odd glasses.

I wore tinted glasses for a while that helped me read better. They look more like sunglasses though. I probably need Irlen lenses but my reading glasses take the strain off my eyes.

With the tinted lenses I didn't mix the order of letters up. I could actually read how you're supposed to read.

If you can afford a good looking pair of frames then get them. I think being able to see clearly is better than being fashionable though.

Ah - okay, that makes sense. See, for me, I wear glasses anyway. I have very bad eyesight. So it would be a case of tinting glasses I already have.

Although - if you already have frames to sunglasses, surely they'd be able to put Irlen lenses within them?

I tried them and felt a bit self-concious about wearing them as they attracted attention.

I had a lot more success with coloured overlay - different people need different ccolours.
Overlay are more convenient , they can be bought VERY cheaply from a stationers shop and can be used as A4 size over sheets of reading matter or cut to fit in novels ( they can double up as bookmarks ! !

I tried them and felt a bit self-concious about wearing them as they attracted attention.

I had a lot more success with coloured overlay - different people need different ccolours.
Overlay are more convenient , they can be bought VERY cheaply from a stationers shop and can be used as A4 size over sheets of reading matter or cut to fit in novels ( they can double up as bookmarks ! !

In that case get the tinted glasses. They'll help.

Probably it would be possible to get Irlen lenses specially crafted for my sunglasses frame, only it would be expensive, and anyway, my sunglasses are tinted in the exact shade my Irlen lenses would have to be, so it seemed a bit pointless. They're a VERY light shade of orange, not enough to make the world look all orange (which would be very annoing) but just enough to make artificial light look a bit "warmer" and avoid the problems I have with fluorescent light. And on the outside, the lenses darken to light brown and do the job of normal sunglasses. They're somehow sensitive to the intensity of light. I'm very happy with them and I don't see a reason to change them. (One of the few times in history Dolce&Gabbana actually created something with medical use, haha.)

Hello, yes I wear irlen glasses, yes they are reasonably fashionable (helps that I managed to get my own frames) I can not explain how much they have helped me, no more getting totally overwealmed by car headlights, blacklights, any of that stuff its awsome. I won't go so far as to say they have totally changed my life but I am going back to college in september. If you are interested I am writing a blog about my experiecne with Irlen lenses its over at http://physical-irlen.blogspot.com/

They don't make it where I live, I use a pair of tinted lenses but they are in no way personalised, even with them I get meltdowns fairly often, lately the over exposure to some fluorescent light left me virtually anosmic (loss of smell) which is weird since I am kind of a bloodhound when it comes to my sense of smell and heightened my hearing unbearably sensitive that I have been going around with earplugs everywhere and I am still able to hear people just fine.

And there is this thing that I don't know how it is called but I explain it like this, I will start with the premise that I think in pictures and when experiencing emotions I think of them as images, colours, figures and waves, and when light comes in, it just wipes it all and leaves me "feeling-less", the only thing I might feel are feelings of anguish from not being able to feel at the sight of emotions, for example I am very sound driven, music can really trigger emotions that I very much enjoy in me but when I am "feeling-less" they will do nothing for me, naught, nothing what so ever, only mad and depressed from having drunk from the chalice of emotions and feel nothing, and it can go on for weeks and since there are fluorescent lights virtually everywhere mostly for months and that is a major problem for me not only for the obvious reasons but because I enjoy catharsis, I am actually pretty sensitive and saddened from things as small as someone stomping an ant, but when light strikes me I feel nothing, I can intellectually recognise it but emotionally I will feel nothing which makes me depressed greatly, over the years I have learned to just obviate the fact that the great majority of the time I cannot feel which lately has kind of worked for me.
A while ago before this major fluorescent light over exposure I was in one of those places where I could 'feel', basically I slept during the day, since daylight also screws me up, used only mild blue light tungsten light bulbs and shut the windows, a few days later I was rather back to my normal self, I even had an amazing week in which I went to dinner and a night walk with a new friend which I really enjoyed, and then met the most amazing person over the internet which had me giggling like a 13 year old, and then it happened, like I said at the begining I was left virtually anosmic, my anxiety rose through the roof (I've been eating from it like non stop for four days) and the "feeling-less-ness" is just worst than ever, I have been kind of secluded to avoid meltdowns.

I guess the utter most terrible part of this is that when ever I am sensory overloaded my hyperempathy really kicks in for the worst and I am being left personally "feeling-less" whilst still empathically overloaded with other peoples emotions which now through the years have become the "usual" for me, now a days I just take the good days and make the most of it and the majority of the time I just go along with other's emotions. Lately I have become a hermit which in a sense is great because I can assure no feeling at all is better than feeling someone else's rationally-disconnected-from-my-mind feelings.