Uveitis

Overview

Uveitis is a form of eye inflammation. It affects the middle layer of tissue in the eye wall (uvea).

Uveitis (u-vee-I-tis) warning signs often come on suddenly and get worse quickly. They include eye redness, pain and blurred vision. The condition can affect one or both eyes, and it can affect people of all ages, even children.

Possible causes of uveitis are infection, injury, or an autoimmune or inflammatory disease. Many times a cause can’t be identified.

Uveitis can be serious, leading to permanent vision loss. Early diagnosis and treatment are important to prevent complications and preserve your vision.

Symptoms

Uvea where uveitis occurs Eye with uveaOpen pop-up dialog box

The signs, symptoms and characteristics of uveitis may include:

Eye redness
Eye pain
Light sensitivity
Blurred vision
Dark, floating spots in your field of vision (floaters)
Decreased vision

Symptoms may occur suddenly and get worse quickly, though in some cases, they develop gradually. They may affect one or both eyes. Occasionally, there are no symptoms, and signs of uveitis are observed on a routine eye exam.

The uvea is the middle layer of tissue in the wall of the eye. It consists of the iris, the ciliary body and the choroid. When you look at your eye in the mirror, you will see the white part of the eye (sclera) and the colored part of the eye (iris).

The iris is located inside the front of the eye. The ciliary body is a structure behind the iris. The choroid is a layer of blood vessels between the retina and the sclera. The retina lines the inside of the back of the eye, like wallpaper. The inside of the back of the eye is filled with a gel-like liquid called vitreous.

The type of uveitis you have depends on which part or parts of the eye are inflamed:

Anterior uveitis affects the inside of the front of your eye (between the cornea and the iris) and the ciliary body. It is also called iritis and is the most common type of uveitis.
Intermediate uveitis affects the retina and blood vessels just behind the lens (pars plana) as well as the gel in the center of the eye (vitreous).
Posterior uveitis affects a layer on the inside of the back of your eye, either the retina or the choroid.
Panuveitis occurs when all layers of the uvea are inflamed, from the front to the back of your eye.

When to seek medical advice

Contact your doctor if you think you have the warning signs of uveitis. He or she may refer you to an eye specialist (ophthalmologist). If you’re having significant eye pain and unexpected vision problems, seek immediate medical attention.

Causes

In about half of all cases, the specific cause of uveitis isn’t clear, and the disorder may be considered an autoimmune disease that only affects the eye or eyes. If a cause can be determined, it may be one of the following:

An autoimmune or inflammatory disorder that affects other parts of the body, such as sarcoidosis, ankylosing spondylitis, systemic lupus erythematosus or Crohn’s disease
An infection, such as cat-scratch disease, herpes zoster, syphilis, toxoplasmosis or tuberculosis
Medication side effect
Eye injury or surgery
Very rarely, a cancer that affects the eye, such as lymphoma

Risk factors

People with changes in certain genes may be more likely to develop uveitis. Cigarette smoking has been associated with more difficult to control uveitis.

Complications

Left untreated, uveitis can cause complications, including:

Retinal swelling (macular edema)
Retina scarring
Glaucoma
Cataracts
Optic nerve damage
Retinal detachment
Permanent vision loss

July 15, 2021

How to Maintain Your Eyeglasses

Though many of us wear glasses, very few of us realize the maintenance they actually need to keep our vision clear. Maintaining your eyewear isn’t difficult, but it does require special care. Read some of our tips for taking care of your eyeglasses

Tips for Maintaining Your Glasses

Avoid Chemical Contact

Your glasses can be very fragile depending on how they were made. Some lenses have films on them to provide UV protection, scratch or shatter resistance, or even to enhance your prescription. These films are the most fragile part of your glasses, and they can easily be destroyed by contact with certain abrasive chemicals.

While it’s obvious that you shouldn’t scrub your glasses with, say, bathroom cleaner, it’s much less obvious that everyday things we put on our skin, like lotions and sunscreen, can be nearly as bad for our sensitive glasses as the bathroom cleaner we all know we should never use.

These products can contain mild abrasives that do not harm (and sometimes can even help!) our skin but may harm the film on our glasses, especially with exposure over time.

Wash Your Hands

The only way to be certain that you are avoiding any chemical contact with your glasses is to wash your hands before handling them. Lotions and sunscreens are just two of the many things we can have on our hands; often our hands have all sorts of random things on them that we don’t notice or can’t see.

A simple hand washing before you handle your glasses can help to keep the abrasives from getting onto your lenses and can help keep everything clean.

Rinse Your Lenses

While you’re at the sink, run your glasses under a gentle stream of warm water. This will help to carefully remove any loose dirt or other debris that could scratch the lenses when you wipe your lenses.

If you were to omit this step, you might end up scratching your lenses with invisible debris. While the damage might not be visible immediately, it will degrade your lenses more quickly.

Use a Lens Cloth

Once your hands are clean and you’ve run your glasses under warm water, you can wipe the lenses off to remove any leftover oils and grime. Back away from that T-shirt and put down the paper towels! You should only use a cloth specially designed for lenses. Your local Eyeglass World will sell these as either lens cloths or microfiber cloths. Using a material that was not intended to clean glasses can and will do more damage than the little bits of dirt you’re trying to remove.

Use a Cleaning Solution

Usually, a simple rinse and wipe is enough to get your frames back to top condition. However, there are always cases where we end up with grime that just won’t come off easily.

In these cases, you should only use a cleaning solution that you get from your optometrist. These cleaners are specially formulated to be very gentle on your glasses, whereas cleaners that might work on other forms of glass could be harsh and cause damage.

Store Them Correctly

Remember, when you’ve cleaned your eyeglasses, you need to be sure to store them properly to avoid having them collect more dirt, causing you to have to repeat the process more often than necessary.

Use the case your eyewear came in to store them. Hard cases generally provide more protection than soft cases. Even though they tend to be bulkier – they’re the safer choice.

If you have any questions, stop by any of our branches

June 28, 2021

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May 27, 2021

After 40 years of blindness, injection of light-sensitive protein restores a man’s vision

The first successful clinical test of a technique called optogenetics has allowed a 58-year-old man to see for the first time in decades.

The man was able to see with the help of image-enhancing goggles after 40 years of blindness, thanks to an injection of light-sensitive proteins into his retina.

According to a study published by Nature Medicine on May 24, this is the first successful clinical application of optogenetics, a technique in which flashes of light are used to control gene expression and neuron firing.

The study revealed that the technique is widely used in laboratories to probe neural circuitry and is being investigated as a potential treatment for pain, blindness and brain disorders.

The clinical trial, run by the company GenSight Biologics, based in Paris, enrolls people with retinitis pigmentosa — a degenerative disease that kills off the eye’s photoreceptor cells, which are the first step in the visual pathway.

In a healthy retina, photoreceptors detect light and send electrical signals to retinal ganglion cells, which then transmit the signal to the brain.

GenSight’s optogenetic therapy skips the damaged photoreceptor cells entirely by using a virus to deliver light-sensitive bacterial proteins into the RGCs, allowing them to detect images directly.

GenSight is one of several companies developing optogenetics as a treatment for RP and other disorders of the retina.

In March, Nirenberg’s company Bionic Sight announced that four of the five people with RP it had treated with a similar optogenetic therapy and a virtual-reality headset had recovered some level of vision, although the full trial results have not yet been published.

Also, Swiss pharma giant Novartis is developing a therapy based on a different protein that is so light-sensitive that goggles might not be needed. That therapy has not yet entered clinical trials.

The researchers injected the virus into the eye of a man with RP, then waited four months for protein production by the RGCs to stabilise before testing his vision, the Nature Medicine reported.

José-Alain Sahel, an ophthalmologist at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center in Pennsylvania and leader of the study, says that one of the challenges was regulating the amount and type of light entering the eye, because a healthy retina uses a variety of cells and light-sensitive proteins to see a wide range of light.

“No protein can replicate what the system can do,” he says. So the researchers engineered a set of goggles that captured the visual information around the man and optimised it for detection by the bacterial proteins.

Using a camera, the goggles analyse changes in contrast and brightness and convert them in real-time into what Sahel describes as a ‘starry sky’ of amber-coloured dots. When the light from these dots enters a person’s eye, it activates the proteins and causes the RGCs to send a signal to the brain, which then resolves these patterns into an image.

The trial participant had to train with the goggles for several months before his brain adjusted to interpret the dots correctly. “He was like an experimentalist, a scientist trying to understand what he was seeing and make sense of it,” Sahel says.

Eventually, he was able to make out high-contrast images, including objects on a table and the white stripes in a crosswalk. When the researchers recorded his brain activity, they found that his visual cortex reacted to the image in the same way as it would have if he had normal sight.

The man still can’t see without the goggles, but Sahel says that he wears them for several hours per day and that his vision has continued to improve in the two years since his injection.

Sahel says six other people were injected with the same light-sensitive proteins last year, but the COVID-19 pandemic delayed their training with the goggles.

A neurobiologist at the University of California, John Flannery says the study “is a big step for the field.

“The most important thing is that it seems to be safe and permanent, which is really encouraging.”

Flannery said while the image may never be as good as natural vision, it is exciting that the brain can interpret images accurately.

Other researchers are, however, calling for more studies.

Sheila Nirenberg, a neuroscientist at Weill Cornell Medical College in New York City says she looks forward to seeing whether the other people in the trial, including some who were injected with higher doses of the protein, have similar results.

“It’s interesting, but it’s an N of 1,” she says.

Karl Deisseroth, a neuroscientist at Stanford University in California who co-developed optogenetics as a lab technique, says the study is important because it is the first time that the technique’s effects have been shown in people.

“It will be interesting to try this with more light-sensitive opsins” that might not require goggles, he says. But he expects optogenetics to be most useful as a research tool that leads to therapies, rather than a therapy itself.

“What we hope to see even more of is optogenetics-guided human and clinical studies,” he says.

May 24, 2021

How to maintain health eyes

Good vision helps you perform well—at home, at work, or behind the wheel. That’s why it’s important to take a few simple steps to make sure you help keep your eyesight at its best. A regular eye exam is the best way to protect your eyesight – and an easy precaution to take. Here are some tips to help maintain eye health as you age.

Eat a Balanced Diet

fruit vegetables As part of your healthy diet, choose foods rich in antioxidants, like Vitamins A and C; foods like leafy, green vegetables and fish. Many foods – especially fatty fish, such as salmon – contain essential omega-3 fatty acids that are important to the health of the macula, the part of the eye responsible for central vision.

An inadequate intake of antioxidants, consumption of alcohol or saturated fats may create free-radical reactions that can harm the macula – the central part of the retina. High-fat diets can also cause deposits that constrict blood flow in the arteries. The eyes are especially sensitive to this, given the small size of the blood vessels that feed them.

Your eyes are unique, and have their own set of nutritional needs. Ocuvite eye vitamins are specially designed to provide a balanced combination of nutrients dedicated to the health of your eyes.* Visit Ocuvite.com to learn more.

Exercise

Exercise improves blood circulation, which improves oxygen levels to the eyes and the removal of toxins.

Get a good night’s sleep

You’ll feel the difference when you get the sleep you need. You’ll look great, you’ll perform at home or work—and good rest will support the health of your eyes.

Wash your hands

Keeping your hands clean is so important when it comes to your eyes, especially if you’re a contact lens wearer. Before you touch your eye—and before you put in or remove a contact lens—wash your hands with a mild soap and dry with a lint-free towel. Some germs and bacteria that come from your hands can cause eye infections, like bacterial conjunctivitis (pink eye). When you touch your eye, whatever is on your fingers goes right onto your eye’s surface. This is one way that people catch colds—rubbing their eyes while they have cold virus germs on their hands.

Don’t Smoke

Smoking exposes your eyes to high levels of oxidative stress. While the connection has not been clearly identified, it is known that smoking increases your risk for a variety of health conditions affecting the eye. To help you quit, visit the American Lung Association’s free online smoking cessation program – Freedom From Smoking Online – at www.ffsonline.org.

Wear Sunglasses

To protect your eyes from harmful ultraviolet (UV) light, choose sunglasses with both UVA and UVB protection. Also, wearing a hat with a brim will greatly reduce the amount of UV radiation slipping around the side of your sunglasses.

Devices and Blue Light

You’re probably using digital devices for hours each day at work and at home. These devices are exposing your eyes to high energy blue light. It’s called blue light because the wavelengths emitted are near the bluer part of the spectrum. Lutein & Zeaxanthin are eye nutrients that are concentrated in the macula and help eyes filter blue light.* Lutein and Zeaxanthin cannot be produced by our bodies on their own, so they must be obtained through diet and/or supplements. If you don’t think you’re getting enough in your diet, visit Ocuvite.com to learn more.

Here are some other tips to help when you’re on your computer:

Keep your computer screen within 20″-24″ of your eye.
Keep the top of your computer screen slightly below eye level.
Adjust lighting to minimize glare on the screen.
Blink frequently.
Take a break every 20 minutes to focus on an object 20 feet away for 20 seconds.
Use lubricating eye drops to soothe irritated, dry eyes.

April 5, 2021

Headaches and your eyes

How a Headache Can Affect Your Eyes and Vision

By Troy Bedinghaus, OD Medically reviewed by Diana Apetauerova, MD on September 08, 2020

Have you ever had a headache that affected your vision? Sometimes a headache can cause pain around your eyes, even though the headache is not associated with a vision problem. On the other hand, a headache may be a sign that your eyes are changing and that it’s time to schedule an eye exam. Although headaches are rarely a medical emergency, a severe one should not be ignored or minimized.

headaches and vision — Verywell / Luyi Wang

Headaches That Affect Vision

Vision problems can sometimes be the consequence of a headache. This is especially true with migraines and cluster headaches.

Migraine Headache

A migraine headache can cause intense pain in and around your eyes. A migraine aura resembling flashing lights, a prismatic rainbow of lights or a zig-zag pattern of shimmering lights often precedes the actual headache. The aura typically lasts around 20 minutes.

Some people who experience a migraine aura never develop the actual headache, making the diagnosis of the visual disturbances difficult.¹ Migraines can also cause tingling or numbness of the skin. People with severe migraines may experience nausea, vomiting, and light sensitivity. Medications, certain foods, smells, loud noises, and bright lights can all trigger a migraine headache.An Overview of Migraine With Aura

Cluster Headache

Cluster headaches are severe headaches that occur in clusters and typically cause pain around the eyes. The pain often radiates down the neck to include the shoulder. Other symptoms include:

Tearing
Nasal drainage
Red eyes
Eyelid droop
Changes in pupil size

Cluster headaches may occur daily for several months at a time followed by a long period with no headaches. It is not known what causes cluster headaches, but they are clearly one of the most severe headaches one can experience.

Vision Problems That Cause Headaches

On the flip side, vision problems can cause headaches when you either overwork the eyes or struggle to maintain focus. By correcting the vision problem, you can often resolve the headache.

Eye Strain

Simply overusing the focusing muscles of your eyes can cause eye strain and headaches. This is an increasing problem in our high tech world

Small-screen texting and web browsing can easily cause eye strain, in part because the words and images on a computer screen are made up of pixels and do not have well-defined edges. The eyes cannot easily focus on pixels, so they must work harder even if an image is in high-resolution.² When the eye muscles become fatigued, a headache can develop around or behind the eyes.

Farsightedness

Adults and children with uncorrected farsightedness (hypermetropia) will often experience a frontal headache (also known as a “brow ache”). If you are farsighted, you may find it difficult to focus on nearby objects, resulting in eye strain and headaches. As you subconsciously compensate for your farsightedness by focusing harder, the headaches can become worse and more frequent.

Presbyopia

Around the age of 40, people begin to find it difficult to focus on nearby objects. Near point activities, such as reading or threading a needle, are often difficult to perform because of blurring. This is an unavoidable condition known as presbyopia that affects everyone at some point. Headaches develop as you try to compensate for the lack of focusing power. Reading glasses can often relieve the underlying eye strain.

Occupations requiring close-up work, exposure to sunlight for longer periods of time, and farsightedness were the most common risk factors for presbyopia.³Presbyopia: Close-Up Vision Loss and What to Do About It

Giant Cell Arteritis

Also known as temporal arteritis, giant cell arteritis (GCA) is an inflammation of the lining of the arteries that run along the temple. GCA usually creates a headache that causes constant, throbbing pain in the temples. Vision symptoms occur as a result of a loss of blood supply to the optic nerve and retina. Other symptoms include:

Fever, fatigue and muscle aches
Scalp tenderness
Pain while chewing
Decreased vision

GCA is considered a medical emergency. If left untreated, the condition may cause vision loss in one or both eyes. A delayed diagnosis is the most common cause of GCA-associated vision loss.⁴2:18

What Is a Retinal Migraine?

Acute Angle-Closure Glaucoma

Acute angle-closure glaucoma (AACG) is a rare type of glaucoma that causes a sudden onset of symptoms, including headaches. Eye pressure rises quickly in AACG causing increased eye redness, eye pain, and cloudy vision. A mid-dilated pupil (in which pupil dilation is sluggish and incomplete) is one of the most important diagnostic features of AACG.⁵

Ocular Ischemic Syndrome

Ocular ischemic syndrome (OIS) is a condition that develops due to a chronic lack of blood flow to the eye. This condition often causes a headache, decreased vision, and a host of other signs, including cataracts, glaucoma, iris neovascularization (the development of new weak blood vessels in the iris), and retinal hemorrhage. White spots on the retina indicate a lack of blood flow and oxygen to the retinal tissue.2:18

What Is a Retinal Migraine?

Herpes Zoster

Also known as shingles, herpes zoster is known for causing headaches, vision changes and severe pain around the head and eye. Herpes zoster is a reactivation of the chickenpox virus and affects a single side of the body. A headache usually precedes an outbreak of painful skin blisters.

Herpes zoster around the eyes is serious and requires immediate medical attention (including antiviral medication) to prevent damage to the ocular nerves and eyes. Complications include corneal clouding, glaucoma, and optic nerve atrophy (deterioration).⁶

Pseudotumor Cerebri

Pseudotumor cerebri is a condition that occurs when the pressure within the skull increases for no apparent reason. For this reason, pseudotumor cerebri is also referred to as Idiopathic Intracranial hypertension (“idiopathic” meaning of unknown origin and “hypertension” meaning high blood pressure).

Pseudotumor cerebri often causes a headache and changes in vision. If left untreated, pseudotumor cerebri can lead to vision loss as the pressure places strain on the optic nerves. Fortunately, while 65% to 85% of people with pseudotumor cerebri will experience visual impairment, the condition is usually transient and will normalize when the hypertension is controlled.

December 1, 2020

Glare Reducing Lenses: Understanding Their Uses

There are two main types of glare reducing lenses for eyewear: lenses with an anti-reflective coating and polarized lenses. Both help to prevent glare in their own way. Glare reducing lenses can improve vision clarity, help people see better while driving at night, reduce annoying glare from water or other horizontal surfaces, and eliminate noticeable reflections on a lens itself.

What is glare?

Glare is caused by light bouncing off of a reflective surface. When talking about eyewear, people are most likely referring to lens glare or environmental glare. Lens glare is caused by the reflection of light off the surface of a lens. Whether it belongs to a camera, telescope, binoculars, or even just glasses, all lenses have some level of reflection with the lowest amount of reflection being less than 0.1%. Eyeglass lenses without a glare-reducing coating typically allow around 90% of light to pass through, depending on the lens material. The other 10% of the light reflects off the surfaces of the lens. The glare caused by this 10% reduces vision clarity, causes people to see halos around headlights and street lamps at night, and creates bright, almost white reflections on the lens itself.

Environmental glare is caused by light waves reflecting off of flat surfaces like water or the highway. It becomes focused and travels in a uniform direction parallel to that surface, creating a bright and intense reflection that we call glare. This type of glare affects everyone, regardless of whether or not they wear glasses.

Outline, in Black

How do glare reducing lenses work?

While it may be impossible to eliminate 100% of the glare on glasses lens, technology has helped to get the number as close to 0 as possible. While both anti-reflective coatings and polarized lenses help to reduce glare, the technology behind these two is quite different. An anti-reflective coating (also known as AR or anti-glare coating) actually encourages more light to pass through a lens. When more light passes through, less light reflected off its surfaces, and thus, less glare.

Polarized lenses, on the other hand, reduce glare by absorbing light waves from a certain orientation. Most polarized lenses for eyewear are oriented to absorb horizontal light waves reflected off of flat surfaces like a lake or the snow-covered ground.

When it comes to eyewear, AR coatings are applied both eyeglass lenses and sunglass lenses. Anti-glare coating is applied to both sides of a lens to prevent light from reflecting off the back of the lens as well. Polarized lenses are typically used for sunglasses since the nature of its glare reducing technology is to block light instead of letting more through.

The benefits of glare reducing lenses

Many people question whether or not it’s worth it to get glare reducing lenses. The short answer is: while not everyone may need sunglasses with polarized lenses, lenses with an anti-reflective coating will vastly improve the quality of life for a glasses wearer.

Lens glare is a major source of eye strain since it reduces vision clarity, forcing your eyes to work harder to focus. People who work with computers are especially susceptible to this type of eye strain since illuminated screens act as a direct and constant source of glare on lenses. Adding AR coating to your lenses significantly lessens this glare, helps you see more clearly, and reduces eye strain caused by computer screens.

Glares called “halos” can be seen around the headlights of cars and street lamps. These halosare a great source of discomfort and distraction for glasses wearers who drive at night. They reduce visibility and make nighttime driving difficult. Anti-glare coating prevents these halos and helps to make driving at night safer for glasses wearers.

If you’re someone who is both literally and figuratively in the spotlight a lot, anti-reflective coating is a must. Glare caused by bright lights reflecting off a lens can be distracting. It also obscures your eyes, making it harder for people to find direct eye contact with you. So if you have a client- or customer-facing job, make sure to consider getting glare reducing glasses.

Finally, if you’re someone who spends a lot of time out on the water or working in the snow, you’re well aware of how much glare can reduce visibility and make it a literal pain to be outside. The tint on sunglasses with polarized lenses helps to reduce that all around brightness, while the polarization helps to save your eyes from blinding glare.

So for the best comfort while wearing glasses or sunglasses, consider glare reducing lenses. Not only will they help you see better, but they’ll also help you get the most out of life. At EyeBuyDirect, you can find affordable glare reducing lenses for any of our great styles.

Coined from eyebuydirect.com

August 22, 2020

Glaucoma

Glaucoma is a condition that damages your eye‘s optic nerve. It gets worse over time. It’s often linked to a buildup of pressure inside your eye. Glaucoma tends to run in families. You usually don’t get it until later in life.

The increased pressure in your eye, called intraocular pressure, can damage your optic nerve, which sends images to your brain. If the damage worsens, glaucoma can cause permanent vision loss or even total blindness within a few years.

Most people with glaucoma have no early symptoms or pain. Visit your eye doctor regularly so they can diagnose and treat glaucoma before you have long-term vision loss.

If you lose vision, it can’t be brought back. But lowering eye pressure can help you keep the sight you have. Most people with glaucoma who follow their treatment plan and have regular eye exams are able to keep their vision.

Glaucoma Causes

The fluid inside your eye, called aqueous humor, usually flows out of your eye through a mesh-like channel. If this channel gets blocked, the liquid builds up. Sometimes, experts don’t know what causes this blockage. But it can be inherited, meaning it’s passed from parents to children.

Less-common causes of glaucoma include a blunt or chemical injury to your eye, severe eye infection, blocked blood vessels inside your eye, and inflammatory conditions. It’s rare, but eye surgery to correct another condition can sometimes bring it on. It usually affects both eyes, but it may be worse in one than the other.

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Glaucoma Risk Factors

It mostly affects adults over 40, but young adults, children, and even infants can have it. African Americans tend to get it more often, when they’re younger, and with more vision loss.

You’re more likely to get it if you:

Are of African American, Irish, Russian, Japanese, Hispanic, Inuit, or Scandinavian descent
Are over 40
Have a family history of glaucoma
Have poor vision
Have diabetes
Take certain steroid medications such as prednisone
Have had an injury to your eye or eyes
Have corneas that are thinner than usual
Have high blood pressure, heart disease, diabetes, or sickle cell anemia
Have high eye pressure
Are nearsighted or farsighted

Types of Glaucoma

There are two main kinds:

Open-angle glaucoma. This is the most common type. Your doctor may also call it wide-angle glaucoma. The drain structure in your eye (called the trabecular meshwork) looks fine, but fluid doesn’t flow out like it should.

Angle-closure glaucoma. This is more common in Asia. You may also hear it called acute or chronic angle-closure or narrow-angle glaucoma. Your eye doesn’t drain like it should because the drain space between your iris and cornea becomes too narrow. This can cause a sudden buildup of pressure in your eye. It’s also linked to farsightedness and cataracts, a clouding of the lens inside your eye.

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Less common types of glaucoma include:

Secondary glaucoma. This is when another condition, like cataracts or diabetes, causes added pressure in your eye.

Normal-tension glaucoma. This is when you have blind spots in your vision or your optic nerve is damaged even though your eye pressure is within the average range. Some experts say it’s a form of open-angle glaucoma.

Pigmentary glaucoma. With this form, tiny bits of pigment from your iris, the colored part of your eye, get into the fluid inside your eye and clog the drainage canals.

Glaucoma Symptoms

Most people with open-angle glaucoma don’t have symptoms. If symptoms do develop, it’s usually late in the disease. That’s why glaucoma is often called the “sneak thief of vision.” The main sign is usually a loss of side, or peripheral, vision.

Symptoms of angle-closure glaucoma usually come on faster and are more obvious. Damage can happen quickly. If you have any of these symptoms, get medical care right away:

Seeing halos around lights
Vision loss
Redness in your eye
Eye that looks hazy (particularly in infants)
Upset stomach or vomiting
Eye pain

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Glaucoma Diagnosis

Glaucoma tests are painless and don’t take long. Your eye doctor will test your vision. They’ll use drops to widen (dilate) your pupils and examine your eyes.

They’ll check your optic nerve for signs of glaucoma. They may take photographs so they can spot changes at your next visit. They’ll do a test called tonometry to check your eye pressure. They may also do a visual field test to see if you’ve lost peripheral vision.

Glaucoma Treatment

Your doctor may use prescription eye drops, oral medications, laser surgery, or microsurgery to lower pressure in your eye.

Eye drops. These either lower the creation of fluid in your eye or increase its flow out, lowering eye pressure. Side effects include allergies, redness, stinging, blurred vision, and irritated eyes. Some glaucoma drugs may affect your heart and lungs. Be sure to tell your doctor about any other medications you’re taking or are allergic to.

Oral medication. Your doctor might also prescribe medication for you to take by mouth, such as a beta-blocker or a carbonic anhydrase inhibitor. These drugs can improve drainage or slow the creation of fluid in your eye.

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Laser surgery. This procedure can slightly raise the flow of fluid from your eye if you have open-angle glaucoma. It can stop fluid blockage if you have angle-closure glaucoma. Procedures include:

Trabeculoplasty. This opens the drainage area.
Iridotomy. This makes a tiny hole in your iris to let fluid flow more freely.
Cyclophotocoagulation. This treats areas of the middle layer of your eye to lower fluid production.

Microsurgery. In a procedure called a trabeculectomy, your doctor creates a new channel to drain the fluid and ease eye pressure. This form of surgery may need to be done more than once. Your doctor might implant a tube to help drain fluid. This surgery can cause temporary or permanent vision loss, as well as bleeding or infection.

Open-angle glaucoma is most often treated with combinations of eye drops, laser trabeculoplasty, and microsurgery. Doctors tend to start with medications, but early laser surgery or microsurgery could work better for some people.

Infant or congenital glaucoma — meaning you are born with it — is usually treated with surgery because the cause is a problem with your drainage system.

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Glaucoma Prevention

You can’t prevent glaucoma. But if you find it early, you can lower your risk of eye damage. These steps may help protect your vision:

Have regular eye exams. The sooner your doctor spots the signs of glaucoma, the sooner you can start treatment. If you’re over age 40 and have a family history of the disease, get a complete eye exam from an eye doctor every 1 to 2 years. If you have health problems like diabetes or are at risk of other eye diseases, you may need to go more often.
Learn your family history. Ask your relatives whether any of them have been diagnosed with glaucoma.
Follow your doctor’s instructions. If they find that you have high eye pressure, they might give you eye drops to prevent glaucoma.
Exercise. Moderate activity like walking or jogging at least three times a week might help lower eye pressure.
Protect your eyes. Use protective eyewear when playing sports or working on home improvement projects

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July 29, 2020

Buy freshlook contact lenses at N2000/pair with 120ml solution, storage case and picker within in Ajuwon Giwa Okearo Alagbole Akute

Buy Freshlook coloured contact lenses @ N2000/pair with 120ml solution and storage case and picker.
– Available quantity: 10, 000 pairs
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– Delivery coverage: Nigeria and West Africa
– Free pre-contact lens fitting examination and tutorial
– To order between 1 pair and 2000 pairs, call +2347030000001
– To order above 2000 pairs, call: +19093663551