Hyperopia Equals Farsightedness?

August 26th, 2010  Tagged

Generally, people think hyperopia equals farsightedness or long-sightedness. This is not completely true. There are some minor difference between hyperopia and the other two names. One of the evident difference is sufferers of hyperopia can focus on objects afar.

It is essential to know something about vision and its related mechanism. When lights are reflected by the objects, they will come into the cornea firstly and then pass to retina through lens. Once the light come to retina, the signals will be received by optic nerves through which the brains are linked.

Therefore, in normal condition, the light signals will be received by retina. However, what if the signals can not be received by it? In some cases, the coming light can not focus on the retina and some abnormal problems occur for this reason. The reasons vary a lot, for some problems may happen to any one of the receiving and delivering procedures on cornea, lens, retain, etc.

It is no denying that people with hyperopia will suffer greatly in their lives. However, not all of them can notice this problem. And some other related problems will arise correspondingly. For example, sufferers may feel their eyes are very tired and sore, or sometimes dry and uncomfortable, after reading or seeing something for a long time. In some cases, sufferers can not focus on some nearby objects and they will feel headache and eye fatigue as a result. This is because eyes are too strained and fatigued.

In most cases, aging will cause some serious eye problems, like presbyopia, cataracts, AMD, etc. However, sometimes, eye problems are not strictly linked with age. And people are suggested to receive some interval eye examinations. For example, some young children may also be victims of hyperopia both in nature and nurture. And their symptoms will become worsened as time goes on. In this sense, some eye examinations are really essential for them, for some other potential problems may be detected through this process.

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Why Are People’s Eyes Dry?

April 22nd, 2010  Tagged

Dryness is one of the commonest eye problems for many people. However, in most cases, many wearers of contacts are also suffering from the pains of eye dryness. With dryness, their eyes are always blood shot. How to solve this problem for contact wearers? Here are some suggestions.

Some wearers of contacts seldom suffer from dryness and other bothering eye problems, whereas other contact wearers will have to endure the dryness in their eyes. Some people many wonder why does this occur. In fact, there are many factors that can lead to eye dryness, such as, climate, dust in the air, and inappropriate maintenance of the lenses. Any way, dryness can be avoided if people pay attention to some points.

The first one is people should make sure that their prescription of lenses are correct. Eyes change all the time, so does the prescription. Generally, wrong prescription is one of the commonest factors that can lead to eye dryness.

The second point is people should maintain their lenses in appropriate ways. The maintenance of these lenses is of critical importance. If they are not cleanly kept, on the lenses will be some wastes that can cause serious eye infections. And these infections can cause eye dryness. Thus, such wastes are roots of eye dryness.

The third point is the ingredients of the lenses should the most advanced materials currently used in the industry. The latest lenses can assure that sufficient moisture can be kept in the eyes. And bad-quality lenses can also lead to eye dryness.

The fourth point is that people may suffer from dryness because their eyes are deformed. Some eye problems can lead to eye deformity which is a reason of dryness. Eye problem like astigmatism can make people’s dry, and the best way to tackle this problem is to wear toric lenses.

The last point is people should change their lenses in appropriate time. If one has worn some lenses too long, they may suffer from eye dryness.

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Some Severe Types of Dry Macular Degeneration

April 15th, 2010  Tagged

Dry Macular Degeneration (AMRD) is now one of greatest threats to those who are over 50. Among all cases of Macular Degeneration (AMD), 90% are AMRD. There are severe AMRD of different sorts. Here is an introduction to each of those problems respectively.

When the retina is filled with many wastes, the patient may suffer from drusen, soft drusen and diagram drusen. And the medications will become useless, for the filled cornea will let nothing in.

When the retina becomes thinner and thinner, sufferers may suffer from blurriness in their central vision. The result of this process may lead to atrophic AMRD. Sufferers of this problem will gradually lose their central vision. And when it comes to its late stage, the dry form may develop into the wet form.

If the retina of a patient become thin and is looked white, he may suffer from choroidal sclerosis. Some choroidal blood vessels are found beneath the damaged area. However, no treatable method has been found for this problem.

If the cornea is divided into several separate parts, patient may suffer from geographic AMD. The disease gets worsen while each of those parts becomes larger. Some smokers run very high risk of getting it.

If any injury occurs to cornea in the middle part, patients will suffer from fovemacular Dystrophy. The macular of the sufferers will be deformed. With such family history, people may get it when they are between 30 and 50 at age.

When the cornea become thin, thick, drusen or pigmented, the patient may suffer from retinal pigment epithelial hypertrophy.

In the aging process, people’s cornea will change in some respects and many will suffer from AMRD. In the metabolism, if retina may become thin, people may suffer from vision loss; if the retina becomes thick, due to the accumulations of some wastes, people may suffer from changes on pigmentation. Therefore, people should be very attentive to any changes on their retina and vision, be they young or old. If there is any symptom, just ask the eye doctors for help.

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New hope for treating Keratoconus

April 15th, 2010  Tagged

In the past, patients with Keratoconus were told that they had little chance to heal the cornea and they had to take corneal transplants to relieve from this kind of eye diseases. However, through researchers’ and eye doctors’ hard work and researches, patients are lucky now that they can have some less invasive ways to treat Keratoconus. The following will give some introduction on Keratoconus and the new treatments that can give hope to Keratoconus patients.

First, let’s learn about how the Keratoconus is caused. This is mainly due to the free radicals which can invade the eye and create a reactive species. Then the species break down and cause weakness, which can make the cornea to herniate and lead to Keratoconus. Though at the beginning, people may not feel terrible with this eye disease, after several years, it may cause people to blindness. It is a common mistake that most of patients do not pay attention to Keratoconus at the beginning, but after the disease spreads from one eye to another, they find they are in a difficult position to deal with it.

In order to help people know more about Keratoconus, the following will list out some symptoms of this eye disease: people feel their eyes itchy, and there are some discomforts and disturbances with their eyesight; as they feel eyes uncomfortable, they rub the eyes or squint too much; with time pass by, they find they have some problems in seeing things clearly and they have to face seeing troubles.

Researches show C3-R is a very effective and less invasive way to treat Keratoconus, which is also regarded as hope for Keratoconus patients. With G3-R treatment, the weakened and damaged place in the cornea can be strengthened. Maybe you think this treatment will be very complicated, though not as complicated as cornea transplant. Actually not. It is only 30 minutes needed for this treatment, but for the following 2 to 4 month, the cornea can be strengthened. Do patients need to have more applications? No. For most patients, only one application is enough, and for patients with severe Keratoconus, they can have two applications.

Besides C3-R treatment, eye doctors now also have some other treatments to achieve a good effect. Corneal collagen crosslinking with Riboflavin have been proved to be effective to improve people’s vision. And Intacts, and/ or CK can be helpful to improve the eyesight as well.

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How to Protect Your Eyes from Glaucoma?

March 9th, 2010  Tagged

Eye is such an important organ for us that we can not live without it. However, it is very fragile and is prone to many diseases. Therefore, for the sake of our eye health, we should pay more visits to eye doctors.

Sometimes, eye problems can also be inherited. For example, some investigations have disclosed that some sufferers of particular eye problems, as glaucoma, have such related family eye history. Glaucoma can always lead to blindness if not properly treated. Here is some information about this problem.

The disease, glaucoma, might be strange to most of us. It can make our vision weaker and weaker, or even blind. It is known that optic nerve is very important for our vision, but it will be damaged by glaucoma.

Theoretically, glaucoma will happen to anyone, but the old people are more inclined to it. There are many factors that can lead to glaucoma. Generally, open angle and close angle are the two main forms of this disease.

Glaucoma can be accumulated. This means that this disease will not happen suddenly, but anytime that we do not notice. It can usually lead to decline in eyesight.

Some people may run high risk of getting glaucoma, say, people with such family history, people with other eye problems, and people with diabetes. And people who are over forty are also included. Therefore, the above mentioned people should pay regular visit to eye doctors and receive some eye examinations. This disease can lead to irreversible damage to the eyes. But it can be prevented or treated at early stage.

As it mentioned earlier, glaucoma will happen to people of any age group, though the older ones run much higher risk. For those younger sufferers of glaucoma, they may have such family history. Biologically, their optic nerve is genetically abnormal when they are born, though they have good vision for some years.

Therefore, those people should be more careful in eye maintenance. Monitoring the change of the optic nerve is essential. In a word, glaucoma may happen to any people of any age.

If the problem is too serious, eye surgery is the only and good alternative. In most cases, receivers can leave the hospital the day when the surgery is finished. Of course, some complications can not be avoided, but they can be treated with some special measures.

More info

Diabetic retinopathy signs and treatments

High intraocular pressure and glaucoma

Brain holds early signs of glaucoma

March 3rd, 2010  Tagged

In a recent study, David Calkins, Ph.D., director of Research at the VEI, discovered that the first sign of injury in glaucoma actually occurs in the brain.

Glaucoma
is generally considered a disease of the eye in which sensitivity to ocular pressure causes damage to the retina and optic nerve, which are components of the central nervous system and do not regenerate. The damage begins in the peripheral visual field and progresses toward the center resulting in complete blindness unless detected early. For this reason, degeneration in glaucoma is often hard to detect.

The report this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences describes recent experiments in which Calkins’ laboratory shows that glaucoma is very much like other central nervous system diseases.

“This is a paradigm shift on how we think about this disease,” said Calkins, associate professor of Ophthalmology at VEI and a member of the neuroscience program. “This will have global implications. This information opens up an entirely new domain of nerve-derived therapeutics.”

Combining this new understanding of where the first neuronal injury for glaucoma occurs, with the fact that the incidence of injury increases with age, researchers now have insight into how the loss of sensory function occurs in normal aging.

Traditionally, glaucoma therapies have focused on lowering ocular pressure within the eye. But the recent PNAS study gives credence to taking a new direction of study focusing on neuronal activity in the middle of the brain where the optic nerve forms its first connections.

“This is very exciting work that demonstrates that we must consider not just the eye, but also the brain, in our efforts to understand blinding diseases such as glaucoma,” said Paul Sternberg, M.D., chair of Ophthalmology and Visual Sciences and director of VEI. “We are optimistic that Dr. Calkins’ neurobiological approach will lead to new targets for potential treatment of this devastating condition.”

Contributors to the advances of medical science

February 2nd, 2010  Tagged

There were some significant breakthroughs in the medical science field during the 20th century. In 1928, Scottish scientist Alexander Fleming discovered penicillin and cardiac surgeon Christian Barnard from South African first developed the human-to-human heart transplantation in 1967. All these advances have significantly contributed to the progression of medical science.

During the long period of medical science development, these individuals mentioned before are lucky that they are remembered by modern people. However, there have been a great number of medical visionaries, who have also made meaningful contribution. Some technological inventions may have resulted from the cooperation or collaboration of many scientists or surgeons.

Indeed, some medical advances have been honed and perfected over a long period of time, so that it is hard to give credit to a specific person or a specific group of contributors. The fact is that many people should receive their deserved credit due to their contribution to certain medical advances.

For instance, there were numerous pioneers of the laser eye surgery. Fyodorov from Russia was performing groundbreaking work in eye surgery field even before the invention of laser eye surgery. Later in 1960, the first artificial crystalline lens was implanted by him. With precise incision near the cornea region, Fyodorov created a surgery for myopia correction.

Besides contributions by Fyodorov, there were other doctors who have helped push laser eye surgery forward. The American physicist Theodore Maiman first developed and patented laser. All these pioneers have made concrete efforts for the invention of laser eye surgery in 1980s.

Another example is the invention of excimer laser eye surgery. Excimer laser was first invented by Nikolai Basov in 1970 but used for silicone computer chips at first. In 1980s, excimer laser was introduced to biological tissue. Steven Trokel from America patented excimer laser for use in corrective eye surgery. All these efforts and pioneering contributions made the first appearance of excimer laser eye surgery in 1987.

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Factors associated with macular degeneration

February 2nd, 2010  Tagged

Age-related macular degeneration is the leading cause of blindness among people over 50 years old in industrialized countries. Scientists have found that antioxidants such as carotenoids are helpful in decreasing the risk of AMD. In particular, spinach is one of the best sources of carotenoids, which are considered as normal macular protective pigment (MPP).

UV rays have been long reported to damage eye tissues because they produce free radicals in the eye. What’s more, blue light is particularly harmful to the macula which is the central retina. A common way to fight against these harmful rays is to wear sunglasses with HEV and UV protection. And brown or amber sunglasses are believed to block out HEV most effectively.

In addition to sunglasses, experts also recommend some nutrients for AMD prevention. Zeaxanthin and lutein are two of the powerful antioxidants that have been found in the macular tissue of the retina. Both of the two nutrients protect the photoreceptors against oxidative stress, inflammation and even degeneration.

There are many sources of zeaxanthin, including foods and supplements. Those foods include egg yolks, squash, pumpkin, orange peppers, collard greens, tangerines, romaine lettuce, green beans, spinach and so on. In addition, supplements from various brands such as Eye Promise-Restore are helpful for those who can not get adequate amounts of zeaxanthin from a diet.

Omega-3 fatty acids are also thought to help maintain eye health. The most common way is to consume fish oil extracted from cold water fish such as salmon, mackerel, anchovies as well as sardines. Ordinary people are encouraged to contain certain amount of fish oil in the diet.

Glutathione is an intracellular antioxidant. It can literally prevent degeneration in the delicate photoreceptor cells. This type of antioxidant is a billion more times potent than Vitamin C in neutralizing those free radicals in the eye.

One’s lifestyle is also critical. Obesity and smoking are both thought to increase the risk of severe macular degeneration by 4 times. And regular exercises are usually helpful in maintaining a health life.

more info

·Factors associated with macular degeneration

·Types and treatments of macular degeneration

Keep An Eye On Glaucoma

January 18th, 2010  Tagged ,

It’s the second leading cause of blindness in our county, but few of us know what glaucoma is.

Eye care professionals are trying to get the word out during January’s National Glaucoma Awareness Month.

Dr. Babek Marefat, an opthamologist with Topeka’s Cotton-O’Neil Clinic, says in glaucoma, elevated pressure in the eye damages the optic nerve, reducing blood supply to the smaller vessels that feed off the optic nerve, causing them to whither and die.

Marefat says the peripheral vessels go first and the subsequent damage leads to loss of peripheral vision. That initial loss often goes unnoticed.

Unchecked, the vision loss will slowly creep toward your central vision and, eventually, you could go blind.

However. Marefat says, reducing the pressure can slow the progression or stop it and reach stability with the vision.

That’s what makes an annual dilated eye exam so important. While it can’t be prevented, anyone can get glaucoma. Your risk is increased if it runs in your family. Marefat doctors also are starting to see a correlation between glaucoma and obstructive sleep apena and vascular conditions in general. In a vision exam, doctors can look for elevated pressures or damage to the optic nerve and catch the first signs of a potential problem.

Elevated pressures can be controlled long-term with medications. Some more severe cases might require surgery to reduce the pressure in the eye.

Eye Problems You May Encounter

January 4th, 2010  Tagged

Most of us will experience eye problems, such as itching eyes, dry eyes and eye discharge, etc. from time to time, some of which are short-lived and will probably disappear on their own, and we often do not take them seriously. However, those short-lived problems, if not treated properly, will lead to long-lived ones later. Therefore, it is of significance and necessity to be clear each eye problems and their possible causes, in case of coming down with some one day. The following is a list of common eye problems for reference.

Pain in eyes:

Some people may have experienced pain in eyes, around their eyes or behind their eyes, it is rather miserable and to a great extent, it affects their normal lives. Generally speaking, pain in eyes can be of ocular pain and orbital pain. The main cause of the former is possibly Conjunctivitis, Styes, Blepharitis, Corneal Abrasions or Ulcers and Chemical Burns, which come from the disorder from the outer structure of the eye. The latter is more probably comes from a deep, dull ache behind or within the eye itself. Diseases like Glaucoma, Migraines, Trauma, Optic Neuritis, and Iritis may cause orbital pain.

In a sense, those suffering from eyes pain may feel stabbing, throbbing, aching, burning or the feeling that “something is in the eye”. No matter what kind of feeling you have, the point is to seek medical attention for treatment or, if necessary, go for an eye doctor immediately. If not critical, some easy applications such as flushing eyes with lukewarm water or commercial eye solutions can be tried by yourself at home. Do remember not to rub or even touch your eyes.

Watery eyes:

It is fairly ironical that watery eyes are often caused by dry eyes, for when eyes get too dry, eye system will automatically produce tears to supply the lack of water in eyes and in the meantime, too many tears can actually begin to reverse the good and start working against itself. Watery eyes are the common eye problems for elder people due to aging. Additionally, the cause of watery eyes can be of other eye conditions, such as Blepharitis and Conjunctivitis, and other factors, such as allergies from the outer environment or dust. If your watery eyes is induced by a lack of tears, dropping artificial tears or eye drops can be helpful; if your watery eyes is induced by allergies, taking relative medication, such as counter antihistamines can alleviate the symptom; if you experience watery eyes for more than couple of days, you’d better go to see a doctor before it turns into something worse. As for elders, they should see their eye doctors regularly because they tend to go the bad more easily.

Red eyes:

Red eyes, a synonym of bloodshot eyes, should be one of the most common eye problems people would suffer from. It comes from the distensible and enlarged blood vessels on the surface of eyes, and the inducement is of a great variety, ranging from illness, injury, eye infection to allergies, etc.. If you have red eyes, it is important to find out why, because red eyes have several causes, some maybe of little concern while some maybe of a sign of a medical emergency, such as lurking such as Blepharitis, Conjunctivitis, Corneal Ulcers or Acute Glaucoma. If it is just of allergic conjunctivitis, an inflammation or infection of the clear, protective layer that coats the front part of the eye, taking antihistamines or dropping eye drops or artificial tears may help and applying coolness of the pack also relieve red eyes, as well as other symptoms like swelling and pain; if it is a serious condition, coupled with eye discharge or eye pains, it is always best to seek the advice of a medical professional.

Ways to prevent yourself from red eyes include, if your red eyes are caused by allergies, trying to stay away from pets and pollens as soon as possible; not rubbing your eyes with dirty hands or handkerchief; getting adequate sleep; and maintaining good health and reducing stress.

Eye discharges:

Eye discharge is a yellowish, sticky, crusty substance that can sometimes make eyes feel glued shut. Some people would have such an experience when they wake up in the morning. Usually eye discharges are harmless, for it is a natural defense against the outer environment that makes eyes discomfort. Although eye discharges are of little concern in most circumstances, there is still a possibility of severe results. Therefore, if the eye condition is mild, some ‘ at home ‘ methods can be applied, such as using a warm washcloth and washing eyes with baby shampoo or other mild detergent, etc.; if you experience a constant discharge from eyes for more than a couple of days, you need to see a doctor. For the reason that eye discharge may be a sign of bacteria invasion, which can lead to Blepharitis or other more serious eye conditions, such as Conjunctivitis and corneal ulcers. They are able to probably cause severe problems, even cause an external blindness. Therefore, eye discharges, in some degree, should be reckoned with carefully when you encounter.

Ways to avoid eye discharges are of a great variety. Do not share towels and washcloths, because this is one of the most popular ways of bacteria spreading; throwing away old make-up, especially those used while you had an infection in your eyes; staying away from contaminated cosmetics and removing oil from eyelids frequently.

What is more, pay a close attention to the change of your vision. In normal condition, when we are grown up, our eyesight, either nearsightedness or farsightedness, will come to be stable. If you find your vision changes persist, this is probably a sigh of some eye problems, diseases and conditions, such as Presbyopia, Cataracts, Glaucoma, Retinal Detachment, Floaters, Macular Degeneration and Diabetic Retinopathy.

Similarly, do not make a big fuss over a minor issue; that is to say, do not feel too upset whenever you encounter any eye problems. What you should do is to stay reasonable, checking whether the eye problems are really serious or not. If they are, go for an eye doctor; if not, enough rest and proper medication will solve the problem.

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