WHY YEARLY EYE EXAMS ARE SO IMPORTANT!!

Routine eye exams are important — regardless of your age or your physical health.

During a comprehensive eye exam, your eye doctor does much more than just determine your prescription for eyeglasses or contact lenses. He or she will also check your eyes for common eye diseases, assess how your eyes work together as a team and evaluate your eyes as an indicator of your overall health.

Also, eye doctors often are the first health care professionals to detect chronic systemic diseases such as high blood pressure and diabetes.  

Who Should Get Their Eyes Examined?

Eye examinations are an important part of health maintenance for everyone. Adults should have their eyes tested to keep their prescriptions current and to check for early signs of eye disease.

Children's eye exams are important to ensure normal vision development.

Eye exams for children play an important role in ensuring normal vision development and academic achievement of all kids.

Vision is closely linked to the learning process. Children with undetected vision problems often will have trouble with their schoolwork. Many times, children will not complain of vision problems simply because they don't know what "normal" vision looks like.

If your child is performing poorly at school, be sure to have his or her eyes examined by an eye doctor who specializes in children's vision to rule out an underlying visual cause.

What Is the Eye Doctor Checking for?

In addition to evaluating your eyes for glasses and contacts, your eye doctor will check your eyes for eye diseases and other problems that could lead to vision loss. Here are some examples of the conditions that your eye doctor will be looking for:

Watch this video on what causes blurry vision and how we can correct it.

•               Refractive error. This refers to nearsightedness, farsightedness and astigmatism. Refractive errors are corrected with eyeglasses, contacts or refractive surgery.

•               Amblyopia. This occurs when the eyes are turned or when one eye has a much different prescription than the other. The brain will "shut off" the image from the turned or blurry eye. Left untreated, amblyopia can stunt the visual development of the affected eye, resulting in permanent vision impairment. Amblyopia is often treated by patching the stronger eye for periods of time.

•               Strabismus. Strabismus is defined as crossed or turned eyes. The examiner will check your eyes' alignment to be sure that they are working together. Strabismus causes problems with depth perception and can lead to amblyopia.

•               Eye teaming problems. Even if you eyes appear to be properly aligned, it's possible they do not work together efficiently as a team. Such binocular vision problems can cause headaches, eye strain and other problems that can affect reading and other near vision tasks.

•               Focusing problems. These problems can range from incompletely developed focusing skills in children to normal age-related declines in focusing ability (presbyopia) among older adults.

•                 

•               After a comprehensive exam, your eye doctor will discuss the findings and offer treatment options best suited to your needs.

•               Eye diseases. Many eye diseases, such as glaucoma and diabetic retinopathy, have no symptoms in their early stages. Your eye doctor will check the health of your eyes inside and out for signs of early problems. In most cases, early detection and treatment of eye diseases can help reduce your risk for permanent vision loss.

•               Other diseases. Eye doctors can detect early signs of some conditions and diseases by looking at your eye's blood vessels, retina and so forth. Your eye doctor may be able to tell you if you are developing high blood pressure, high cholesterol or other problems.

For example, diabetes can cause small blood vessel leaks or bleeding in the eye, as well as swelling of the macula, which can lead to vision loss. Your eye doctor will likely detect this during a complete eye exam. It is estimated that one-third of Americans who have diabetes don't know it; your eye doctor may detect the disease before your primary care physician does, especially if you're overdue for a physical.

Courtesy of All About Vision

Do you ever stand in a pharmacy aisle wondering what contact solution to buy? Here are your options!

Multipurpose Contact Solutions

Pure Moist Opti-Solution

•  Dual-purpose liquids that clean and disinfect contacts with a simple rinse-and-store method
•   Also called “No-Rub” solutions which eliminate the extra chore to hand rub
•   Although a 10-second period of rubbing the contact provides a greater cleaning effectiveness



Biotrue Mutlipurpose Contact Solution

• Most convenient  method of cleaning

Hydrogen Peroxide-Based Lens Care Systems

Clear Care HPB Solution

• More effective lens disinfection
• the product has never had a recall due to outbreaks of eye infections
•    HPB Solution is a neutralized by either a tablet or catalytic disk to convert the disinfectant to harmless saline
•    Best Choice for patients with allergies

*Must neutralize completely otherwise one may incur a painful eye injury from exposing their eyes to unneutralized hydrogen peroxide.

*DANGER* Think again before you wash your Contacts with Water!

Water

·         Carrier of threatening viruses which can cause severe eye infections that can lead to blindness

Beer Goggles...

Have you ever consumed one too many drinks to the point of having double vision. Oddly, we don't always have to be totally trashed to see double. So what causes it exactly?

•  General Effect
 

 Alcohol is a DOWNER that reduces activity in the central nervous system. The alcohol intoxicated person exhibits loose muscle tone, loss of fine motor coordination, and often has a staggering "drunken" gait.

• Eyes
 

 The eyes may appear somewhat "glossy" and pupils may be slow to respond to stimulus. At high doses pupils may become constricted.

• Vital Signs


 At intoxicating doses, alcohol can decrease heart rate, lower blood pressure and respiration rate, and result in decreased reflex responses and slower reaction times.

• Skin
 

 Skin may be cool to the touch (but the user may feel warm), profuse sweating may accompany alcohol use.  Observation
 Loose muscle tone, loss of fine motor coordination, odor of alcohol on the breath, and a staggering "drunken" gait.


Apparently, alcohol effects the nerves in your brain and brain stem that govern your eye movements. According to Indiana University professor Bruce Martin: 

"It slows down the brain so you can't get the eyes tracking on something quickly. The time it takes to get your two eyes — their images — to fuse to give you a single image increases when you drink." . . . Covering one eye can help, he notes, "because then you don't have your brain comparing the two images. You just have the one image." 

The effects of alcohol intoxication are greatly influenced by individual variations among users. Some users may become intoxicated at a much lower Blood Alcohol Concentration (BAC) level than is shown. 

•  0.02-0.03 BAC: Depressant effects are not apparent. 
•  0.04-0.06 BAC: Feelings of relaxation, lower inhibitions, sensation of warmth. Euphoria. Some minor impairment of reasoning and memory, lowering of caution. 
•  0.07-0.09 BAC: Slight impairment of balance, speech, vision, reaction time, and hearing. Euphoria. Judgement and self- control are reduced, and caution, reason and memory are impaired. 
• 0.10-0.125 BAC: Significant impairment of motor coordination and loss of good judgement. Speech may be slurred; balance, vision, reaction time and hearing will be impaired. Euphoria. It is illegal to operate a motor vehicle at this level of intoxication. 
• 0.13-0.15 BAC: Gross motor impairment and lack of physical control. Blurred vision and major loss of balance. Euphoria is reduced and dysphoria is beginning to appear. 
•  0.16-0.20 BAC: Dysphoria (anxiety, restlessness) predominates, nausea may appear. The drinker has the appearance of a "sloppy drunk." 
• 0.25 BAC: Needs assistance in walking; total mental confusion. Dysphoria with nausea and some vomiting. 
• 0.30 BAC: Loss of consciousness. 

Fascinating, right? If somewhat disturbing! Now that you know what's causing it, will you make more of an effort to avoid seeing double? Also, let me remind you that you should limit yourself to one alcoholic beverage a day and if you're seeing double don't try to drive covering one eye. Call a cab instead.

Optometrist vs Ophthalmologist, Do You Know The Difference?

An Optometrist is a health care professional who is licensed to provide primary eye care services:

• to examine and diagnose eye diseases such as glaucoma, cataracts, and retinal diseases and, in certain states in the U.S., to treat them;
• to diagnose related systemic (bodywide) conditions such ashypertension and diabetes that may affect the eyes;
• to examine, diagnose and treat visual conditions such asnearsightedness, farsightedness, astigmatism and presbyopia; and
• to prescribe glasses, contact lenses, low vision rehabilitation and medications as well as perform minor surgical procedures such as the removal of foreign bodies.

An optometrist is a Doctor of Optometry, an O.D. (not to be confused with a Doctor of Medicine, an M.D.). To become an optometrist, one must complete pre-professional undergraduate college education followed by 4 years of professional education in a college of optometry. Some optometrists also do a residency.

An Ophthalmologist is an eye M.D., a medical doctor who is specialized in eye and vision care. Ophthalmologists are trained to provide the full spectrum of eye care, from prescribing glasses and contact lenses to complex and delicate eye surgery. They may also be involved in eye research.

After 4 years of medical school and a year of internship, every ophthalmologist spends a minimum of 3 years of residency (hospital-based training) in ophthalmology. During residency, the eye M.D. receives special training in all aspects of eye care, including prevention, diagnosis and medical and surgical treatment of eye conditions and diseases. An ophthalmologist may spend an additional year or two in training in a subspecialty, that is, a specific area of eye care such as:

• Cornea and External Disease: The diagnosis and management of diseases of the cornea, sclera, conjunctiva and eyelids, includingcorneal dystrophies, microbial infections, conjunctival and corneal tumors, inflammatory processes and anterior ocular manifestations of systemic diseases. Training frequently includes corneal transplantsurgery and corneal surgery to correct refractive errors.
• Glaucoma: The treatment of glaucoma and other disorders that may cause optic nerve damage by increasing intraocular pressure. This involves the medical and surgical treatment of both pediatric and adult patients.
• Neuro-ophthalmology: The relationship between neurologic andophthalmic diseases, neuro-ophthalmology also deals with localpathology affecting the optic nerve and visual pathways. Over 50% of all intracranial lesions involve the visual or oculomotor pathways.
• Ophthalmic Pathology: Training in both ophthalmology and pathology. Because of the unique combination of skills involved in this subspecialty, it is usually the ophthalmic pathologist, rather than the general pathologist, who examines tissue specimens from the eye andadnexa (related structures).
• Ophthalmic Plastic Surgery: Includes orbital surgery, lid and upper facial reconstructive procedures following trauma and tumors and cosmetic lid surgery. Oculoplastic surgeons combine ophthalmic surgery with plastic surgery and are trained in the use of radiotherapy,chemotherapy and chemosurgery to treat ocular and orbital disease.
• Pediatric Ophthalmology: The medical and surgical management ofstrabismus, amblyopia, genetic and developmental abnormalities and a wide range of inflammatory, traumatic and neoplastic conditions occurring in the first two decades of life.
• Vitreoretinal Diseases: The medical and surgical treatment of retinal and vitreoretinal disease. The types of diseases treated include manifestations of local, systemic and genetic diseases as they affect the retina and vitreous. Diagnosis involves the use and interpretation of ultrasound, fluorescein angiography and electrophysiology. Treatment methods include laser therapy, cryotherapy, retinal detachment surgery and vitrectomy (removal of the vitreous).

This information is courtesy of medicinenetdotcom

bebe S P R I N G / S U M M E R 2012 preview capsule collection

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Glasses that fit

Selecting Glasses that are conformable and fashionable – THE BALANCING ACT

You have to make sure that the temples do not dig into the side of your head and that the frames are wide enough for your face. The edge of the frames should protrude slightly beyond your face so that the temples do not touch your head as they extend back to your ears.

Also, you have to make sure the temples are long enough. There are many styles in a variety of temple lengths. The curve at the end of the temple should extend over the ear without pressing down upon it. The optician can reshape and adjust the curve at the end of the temple, but he cannot make the temples shorter or longer, that is why it is important that you select the best length.

As well, you have to check the nosepiece for comfort and fit. Many glasses have adjustable silicone nose pads that allow your optician to fine-tune the fit. For frames without adjustable nose pads, make sure the fit is secure without pinching the bridge of your nose.

When you try on the frames, move your head up and down, bend over and pick up something from the floor and see how well your glasses stay in place. With the properly adjusted nose pads and temples, your glasses should stay in place without pressing on your face.

If you already have a pair of frames that you would like to purchase again or even find a pair of frames similar to yours, you can quickly identify the designer name, model number, and frame size by simply looking on the inside of your eyeglass temples (arm pieces).  + this article courtesy of optics 101