Eye Disease

Wouldn’t it be great if we all had our dream car that didn’t need oil changes, premium gas, hefty insurance, and tire changes? What if it also didn’t rust or deteriorate with time? Maybe in the near future.

For now, we all know that maintenance schedules are required to make any car we have last as long as possible, especially if that is the only car we have. The same concept applies to our eyes. Routine eye exams are the first steps to preserving one’s vision as time passes by. Numerous eye conditions are preventable and/or correctable if detected early enough such as presbyopia, dry eye syndrome, glaucoma, cataract, diabetic and hypertensive retinopathy, and others.

We are all born with focusing lenses accompanied by muscles inside our eyes. At a young age, the lens is flexible. We can read as close as we want. As we get older, the lenses become hardened. The magic number is the big “four-zero”. The focusing muscles have to work very hard which can cause headaches and eyestrain. A smaller number of individuals prefer to take the headaches and strain until their arms can’t be extended any further. To alleviate the near symptoms, a magnified lens is used to help our eyes focus better with reading and computer. There are many options to correct the aging lens.

The first option is reading glasses over any distance prescription. The drawback is that one has to take off to focus at a distance.

The second option is bifocal. It is the combination of distance and near prescriptions into one lens. The disadvantage to this type of lens is cosmetic. The advantage is the ease of usage. When one wants to read, just drop one’s eyes into the reading materials.

The third option is invisible trifocal. It does not have any lines in the lens. The reading portion is integrated in step levels starting with weakest in the middle of the lens to the strongest reading power at the bottom of the lens. Therefore, if one wants to read smaller prints one has to raise the chin so that the eyes drop to the bottom of the lens for more powers. The other drawback to this is the reading field of view at each level is smaller than the bifocal’s. There are other options such as anti-reflective coatings and tints to help the near tasks.


Now let’s talk about Dry-eye Syndrome:

Are your eyes tearing, red, stinging, burning, having foreign body sensations, and itching, especially after reading or on the computer? The quantity and quality of your tear may decrease with age, systemic conditions such as rheumatoid arthritis, lupus and drugs such as antihistamines and beta-blockers. In our office we performs tests to determine the quantity and quality of your tears in order to use the right mode of treatment. Artificial tears usually take care of the problems. Lubricating ointments can also be used overnight. Punctual plugs are further treatments that can be made permanent or disposable.

Glaucoma is a binding, detectable, preventable and treatable disease. It is a nerve fiber layer of the retina that is lost. The peripheral vision is the first to go leading to tunnel vision and eventual blindness. However, eye care providers can intervene to preserve vision. The first step is to rule-out risk factors such as family history, age, systemic vascular diseases, myopia, and African-American descent. The screening step allows the doctor to proceed with tests such as visual field, pressure check, photos, and dilation. Optometrists have recently gained the rights to treat glaucoma.

Imagine yourself standing in a house with just one window to the outside world. The sun, smoke, dust, and other debris will affect this clear window. Once the window is fuzzy enough to affect clarity of vision, then it needs to be replaced with a new one. The process describes cataract and it removal. Cataract has four major risk factors, which are ultraviolet lights, smoking, genetics, and bad habits. The ozone layer is not what it used to be. There are more holes in it then we can count. In reality, we will all get cataracts eventually if we live long enough. By wearing sun protection shades, cataract removal is further in the distant future. Our office can help one pick the right tints, shades, transition lens, and types of eyewear to meet the needs of one’s eyes.

Think of a movie screen as the only input to your brain. It has nerves, blood vessels, and other structures to keep it in good standings. This screen is called the retina, which is susceptible to systemic diseases. Because Diabetes is a small blood vessel disease, it can cause nonproliferative and proliferative retinopathy dependent on how controlled the sugar level is over a period of time. In nonproliferative stage, there are hemorrhages, cotton-wool spots, exudates that must be monitored regularly. The proliferative stage, there is neovascularization that must be treated. In addition, diabetes temporarily affects vision until the sugar level is stabilized. Another condition is hypertension, which follows similar course as diabetes. Therefore, it is crucial to monitor these conditions with regular exams that include dilations, photos, and visual fields.