Christmas Lights & Astigmatism

People with astigmatism likely see lights streaky, blurry, fuzzy, surrounded by glare or halos. This happens because in dim light or at night your pupil dilates in order to allow more light into the eye. As it dilates and grows large, more peripheral light enters the eye. Increased blurring and glare resulting in fuzziness, particularly around lights is the main effect. Looking at Christmas lights may be a struggle to see the individual blubs or lights on a string, instead seeing a general blur with the lights merging together.

Keep Yourself & Your Eyes Safe From COVID

As Covid-19 is still around it is important you are taking care of yourself. It is possible for people who have caught Covid to present with ocular symptoms, such as conjunctivitis, which is known as pink eye. Pink eye is an irritation or inflammation of the conjunctiva, which covers the white part of the eye. It can be triggered by allergies, a bacterial or viral infection. The essential ways to protect yourself and others is to be sure to cover coughs and sneezes with your elbow, wash hands with soap and water, use hand sanitizer, stay home if you are sick, wear a facemask if you are sick or caring for someone that is sick and disinfect frequently touched surfaces everyday.

Protecting your eyes:

Take a break from contact lenses, this will help minimize hand-to-eye contact. Glasses can help shield your eyes and can act as a protective shield. Try your best not to touch your eyes, if your eyes are itchy use a tissue instead of your finger. Be sure to wash your hands before and after touching your eyes. Lastly, be sure to have a good supply of your medications.

Eye Infections in the Rainy Season

On rainy days we catch a break from the scorching heat, but the rainy season also triggers several air-borne infections. Your eyes become more prone to seasonal diseases with massive bacterial growth and virus outbreaks. The main reason behind increased eye infections is the heavy moisture content in the air, which becomes an easy breeding ground for bacteria, viruses, and other germs. Conjunctivitis, stye and dry eyes are common eye infections in the rainy season. In order to avoid eye infections during rainy season is to avoid touching your eyes, wash your hands frequently, avoid sharing towels, handkerchiefs, and pillows, avoid eye makeup, use protective gears, avoid the swimming pool and avoid rubbing your eyes.

Ripped Contact Lens?

Ripped contacts lens can be very frustrating. We may wonder why lens can’t be made out of stronger material. More than 45 million Americans who wear contacts prefer soft lenses because the soft lens material is a lot more comfortable and is able to let a great deal of oxygen to the cornea, which keeps them healthy. Sometimes comfort comes with the price of the potential for damage. If you do have a lens that is ripped, do not attempt to wear it. Any torn edge can scratch the cornea.

Here are some tips to prevent rips in your contact lenses:

• Try not to use your fingernails
• If your lens gets folded, unfold in solution
• Be sure to keep them moist
• Keep lens case full

Halloween Fun

We are officially in the month of Halloween. It’s a time for costume parties, haunted houses, trick-or-treating, and candy, but it is also unfortunately a time when there’s an increase in eye injuries. Many popular Halloween activities and costumes carry a risk of eye injury and eye infections. Here are some simple tips to avoid eye infection and eye injuries.

• Be sure to practice safe trick-or-treating, it is important to take some safety precautions. Make sure everyone in your group is wearing reflective gear so that drivers can see you easily. It is also a good idea to carry a flashlight so you can see where you are going walking house to house in the dark.
• If you are wearing a mask as part of a costume, make sure it fits properly and doesn’t obstruct your vision. Masks should have large eyeholes so you could see clearly. When masks do not properly could be dangerous for children while trick-or-treating especially because the restrict their peripheral vision. Wigs and eye patches can also obstruct your vision so be sure to use them with caution.
• Some costumes require sharp objects, it is best to skip adding sharp, pointed accessories to costumes. Toy swords and magic wands can increase the risk of eye injury.
• Be careful using any type of costume makeup that could contain chemicals and additives that can possibly harm your eyes and vision.
• Do not wear non prescription contact lenses, these decorative lenses can lead to very serious eye infections and disorders.

Pressure Behind the Eyes?

Pressure behind the eyes does not necessarily have anything to do with an eye problem. There a few causes to the pressure behind the eyes such as migraines and related headaches, sinusitis, graves’ disease, optic neuritis or dry eye syndrome. Glaucoma is one common eye disease that could possibly lead to pressure behind the eyes.  Depending on what your symptoms are like, what your pressure feels like, how long you’ve had it and what might have triggered it, the doctor may do tests through endoscopy, MRI, CT scan, ultrasound, blood test or radioactive iodine uptake.

Winter Eye Protection

Cold weather is just around the corner which means you still need to be taking care of your eyes. Indoor heat and forced air from car vents dries out your eyes just as it dries out your skin. In the summertime, the sun may feel hotter, but since snow is reflective it is important to wear sunglasses that protect you from dangerous UV rays. Winter UV rays can be twice as dangerous compared to summer. When participating in winter sports like snowboarding, ice-skating, and skiing, it’s important to take the time to protect your eyes and yourself from debris, snow and sun.

Even with sunglasses, light gets in from the top, bottom and sides of sunglasses known as Peripheral Light Focusing Effect (PLF) which means only 45% of UV is still reaching the eye. People often also wear contact lenses as an added layer of protection. Wearing UV-blocking contact lenses reduces the PLF effect by 69% for UVA and 96% for UVB.

Best Vitamins for Eye Health

The best vitamins for our eye health are lutein, zeaxanthin, zinc, vitamin A, vitamin B1, vitamin C, vitamin E, and omega-3 fatty acids. These vitamins can reduce the risk of eye diseases as well as improve overall health. Foods such as blueberries, dark chocolate, eggs and egg yolks, kale, red bell peppers and goji berries are all full of the best vitamins, nutrients and minerals.

Human Eyes vs Animal Eyes

All eyes have one thing in common and that is they focus onto a retina, turn the image into signals, and send them to the brain. Depending on what the animal does to survive, that requires different adaptations. Depth perception, the ability to see movement, and color vision are the ones we need. Humans eyes can’t do a lot of things most animals eyes can do, for example Eagles have much deeper foveae than we do, which is like having built-in telephoto lenses. They can see incredible detail from great distances, and their field of vision is wider.

Strabismus “Cross Eye”

A disorder in which the eyes do not align in the same direction which is strabismus, or pediatric ophthalmology squint also known as “cross eyes”. The six different eye muscles inability to work in coordination with one another is what causes strabismus. There are two different images being sent to the brain, leading to confusion, usually the weaker image is ignored becoming a learned trait. The eye that is responsible for sending the weaker image will lose its ability to perceive which causes amblyopia or lazy eye. In children strabismus are unknown, but can be a causative factor from family history, but in adults it could be from botulism, diabetes, Graves disease, Guillain-Barre syndrome, Shellfish poisoning, Stroke, Traumatic brain injury and vision loss from any eye disease or injury.