Our Story

9ebf9ad1-5dc6-4bd2-b4c7-4def16ad60b1zoom-200x300Dr. Parveen Jaglan

Dr. Parveen Jaglan, developer of BLEP Eyewear, is a practicing optometrist for nearly 20 years. In the recent years she has noticed the change on how her patients utilize their vision. With technology playing a bigger role in all individuals’ lives, the complaints of computer eyestrain continued to increase. She treated and educated her patients from the computer eyestrain due to dry eyes and over accommodation at near, but started to think about what happens to eyes that are sitting 16-20 inches from a LED backlit light source that majority of all computers, tablets, smartphones, and laptops consist of.

A few years back when Dr. Jaglan and her family were building their home, she started looking into LED light fixtures. This is when she first learned about blue light – the high-energy light wavelength that is emitted from all digital devices, LED bulbs and fluorescent lights. She quickly got to work gathering information on her discovery and found multiple studies indicating that prolonged exposure to this blue light can cause oxidative damage to the part of the eye called the retina. Since then, this retinal damage has been linked to Age-Related Macular Degeneration (AMD), the leading cause of central blindness in the United States. Being an optometrist married to a retinal surgeon, Dr. Jaglan is reminded of the blinding effects of this devastating disease on an almost daily basis. Witnessing the progression of AMD in her patients and knowing all about the ever-increasing time spent in front of digital devices, Dr. Jaglan felt a personal responsibility to start educating others about the risks of blue light and develop protective solutions to these harmful emissions. She became aware that there were products in the market available, but they had an extreme yellow tint to the lenses to help absorb blue light. It was important to develop a clear coating that would reflect this light vs absorbing it to maintain a more natural color, was selective to target the most damaging wavelengths, and had a broad coverage in the blue light spectrum to increase contrast when viewing digital device. She wanted to develop a product that could protect the eye as well as combat computer eyestrain. It became clear that this protection should be readily available to everyone.

Being a mother of children that no longer have textbooks, but study on tablets and computers, it was important for Dr. Jaglan to make this protection available for kids, too. Individuals over 40 that are currently wearing over-the-counter readers now have an option of wearing readers with an optical quality lens that offers protection and increases contrast. All other digital users have option of non-rx or low power protection.

In the end, in order to address all these issues, for patients young and old, Dr. Jaglan founded Blue Light Eye Protection, Inc. a.k.a. BLEP, an eyewear company on a mission to decrease daily visual discomfort and offer protection from harmful light emitted form digital devices.