Your Eye Health Guide

Understanding Threats to the Health of Your Eyes

At I'll Be Seeing You, we examine your eyes, determine their health, and write prescriptions for a wide range of issues that can affect your long-term vision.

• Amblyopia
• Astigmatism
• Cataracts
• Contact lens-related infections
• Diabetic eye issues
• Farsightedness
• Glaucoma
• Keratoconus
• Macular degeneration
• Nearsightedness
• Presbyopia
• Retinal diagnostic testing
• Strabismus
• Tears and detachments

Set up your eye exam today. Call us at (929) 604-3012 or come see us.

Commonly referred to as lazy eye, amblyopia is a condition where the eyes and the brain are not working in tandem, which reduces the vision in one eye.

Although glasses alone cannot correct the issue, they can help improve focusing or misalignment issues. Eye exercises may also help, and one eye may be temporarily patched in order to force the other eye to work and get stronger.

Surgery may be necessary.

Caused by uneven curvatures in the cornea, astigmatism causes blurry vision in both nearsighted and farsighted people. In addition to vision issues, it can lead to headaches, fatigue, and eye strain.

We can identify astigmatism during an eye exam, and it can be corrected with properly prescribed eyeglasses or contact lenses that compensate for the condition by bending light in one direction or another.

The shape of the cornea also can be corrected through refractive surgery.

A cataract is a cloudy lens in the eye that makes vision foggy and can interfere with driving, reading, or even facial recognition.

In most cases, cataracts can be addressed with a simple surgical procedure.

Although contact lenses are safe and have been in use for decades, they can lead to infections due to poor hygiene, environmental conditions, and other factors.

Corneal ulcers - Mostly commonly caused by germs, corneal ulcers are an eroded spot or exposed sore on the surface of the eye. Symptoms include redness, pain, blurry vision, discharge, burning, itching, and light sensitivity. Ulcers should be examined by an optometrist, and treatment usually involves eyedrops.

Contact lens-induced acute red eye (CLARE) - Often caused by sleeping with contacts in, CLARE is an inflammation of the cornea and conjunctiva, which is a thin transparent membrane the covers the whites of the eyes. Usually no special treatment is required beyond discontinued use of contacts for a day. If CLARE persists after 24 hours, come see us for an examination.

Contact lens papillary conjunctivitis - also known as giant papillary conjunctivitis (GPC) - Over-wearing contacts can lead to GPC, an inflammation of the upper eyelid that produces small red bumps on the underside of the lid. The eyes may be itchy and produce a discharge, and the user may find lens wear intolerable. We may prescribe eyedrops and recommend a change to one-day lenses.

The best way to avoid lens-related infections is to follow proper lens care guidelines.

Diabetes can lead to damage in the retinal blood vessels and produce an injury known as diabetic retinopathy. It's the leading cause of blindness in working-age adults. Although symptoms do not always show, vision may become marred by floaters or become very blurry.

During a comprehensive eye exam, the pupil is dilated and the retina is examined. If retinopathy is discovered, further tests may be required.

Prevention is the best medicine, but laser surgery may be effective in stopping further vision loss. However, most patients do not recover significant vision. Steroids and anti-VEGF medications also may be prescribed.

When you can see distant objects better than closer ones, you're said to be farsighted. It's usually present at birth and tends to run in families.

It is easily corrected with eyeglasses or contacts.

Glaucoma is a group of eye conditions that result in damage to the optic nerve and vision loss. Often the damage is caused by abnormally high pressure inside your eye. It is the second leading cause of blindness and often shows no early symptoms.

Early diagnosis is essential and treatments can minimize or prevent nerve damage.

In keratoconus, the shape of the cornea become distorted and bulges, which distorts your vision. It causes eyesight halos and ghosting, especially at night, and makes it difficult to drive in darkness. Other effects are eye strain, headaches, eye irritation, and excessive rubbing of the eye.

Treatments include glasses and contacts to address early-stage keratoconus, while advanced cases may require a specially designed contact lenses or surgery.

Macular degeneration describes different eye diseases that affect your central, detail vision. Age-related macular degeneration in people over 60 is the most common and comes in two forms - wet and dry.

Wet macular degeneration - The wet form occurs when abnormal blood vessels begin to grow underneath your retina and then leak, which interferes with the retina's function. Because vision loss may be rapid and severe, regular eye exams are a must.

Treatments include laser surgery, photodynamic therapy, and injections. They do not always offer a cure.

Dry macular degeneration - More common than the wet version, dry macular degeneration occurs when the light-sensitive cells in your macula begin to break down. There is no known treatment, but preventative measures can be taken.

• Eat a lot of green, leafy vegetables and fish
• Avoid smoking
• Engage is regular, moderate exercise
• Maintain blood pressure and weight at healthy levels

When you can see close objects better than far ones, you're said to be nearsighted. In mild cases, you clearly see objects several yards away, while in severe cases only objects a few inches away are seen clearly.

It tends to run in families, and it may develop gradually or quickly in children and teens.

It is easily corrected with eyeglasses or contacts, so make an appointment today.

Typically starting in people around 40, presbyopia is a condition that leads to blurred near vision. It may cause you to squint or hold reading material at arm's length in order to focus your eyes. It also may cause eye strain, headaches, and fatigue.

Let us determine if presbyopia is an issue with your eyes. It can be treated with bifocal eyeglasses or contact lenses. Monovision contacts also may help, since they allow you to use one eye for near vision and the other for distance vision, or you may prefer to wear distance lenses in both eyes

Retinal diagnostic testing is not a disease but an eye examination, including angiography procedures that use special photography to see the structures in the back of your eye.

Angiography - In this procedure, a dye is injected into your arm and then travels to the vessels in the retina, where it can be photographed to show blood leakage, macular degeneration, and other issues. The process also may be used to follow the effects of treatments like lasers and pharmacological therapies.

Optical coherence tomography (OCT) is used to measure retinal thickness, swelling, and fluid accumulation, which are common in retinal conditions. Like angiography, it also may be used to assess treatments.

Ultrasound (B-scan) assesses general ocular and retinal conditions through sound waves. It is especially useful when the doctor can't view the retina due to blockage, such as in cases with dense cataracts or vitreous hemorrhages.

Strabismus is also known as crossed eyes. It occurs when both eyes don't look toward the same object because the muscles around the eyes are not working together. The position of the eyes sends two different images to the brain, which tends to ignore the image from the weaker eye.

Symptoms include squinting, double vision, and faulty depth perception.

Our tests can identify strabismus and determine how much your eyes are out of alignment. Treatments range from prescription eyeglasses and patching to eye exercises. Surgery on the eye muscles also may be pursued.

Retinal tears and detachments occur when the vitreous substance in the center of the eye changes (usually with age) and pulls away from the back of the eye. This is a common occurrence, but sometimes leads to a tear or detachment in the retina.

When a tear develops, fluid in the eye collects under the retina and may cause it to detach, which may lead to flashing light sensations, floaters, and ultimately vision loss.

If found early during an eye exam, a retinal tear can be treated with laser photocoagulation or cryotherapy. Usually, however, more extensive work by an eye surgeon is required.

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