Posts Tagged ‘sight’

A New Era

Sunday, November 28th, 2010

New technology is moving at a frightening pace nowadays, with every aspect of our lives going through new and exciting changes. Even if you’re a bit of a techno-phobe and you haven’t got your i-pad in one hand and your i-phone in the other, you may one day be glad of the newest advances in optics……..

Researchers at St Andrews University believe that they are on the way to finding the perfect contact lens material – a flexible new smart material that they will be able to modify to use in many different situations. Their focus (!) is on disposable lenses, and creating a lens that will enhance vision.

If you love 3D TV but hate wearing ridiculous specs, then there’s hope for you in the development of new light field display. While we expected specs free 3D to arrive during the next ten years, Toshiba have already announced that this new technology will be available much sooner. Light field display is an imaging system which creates the 3D effect, causing less eye strain and making the 3D image change with the viewer’s position.

Clinical trials begin in the UK next year on sub-retinal implants to aid in the treatment of the eye disease Retinitis Pigmentosa. This hereditary disease has no cure at present, and leads to progressive deterioration in sight. Retina implants microchip has been proven to restore a level of useful vision to patients during trials overseas, so we’re looking forward to seeing the results here over the next few months.

A new drug has been approved for use in the treatment of children born with Glaucoma. Xalatan 0.005% reduces the raised pressure in the eyes of these children, who formerly had no specific drugs approved to help them. While drug treatment can’t reverse vision loss due to glaucoma, it can help to preserve the sight they do have.

So whatever your eye health or sight issues, take comfort from ongoing research and the constant innovation that goes on, it might just help you some day soon!

Glasses Online

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Double Check

Wednesday, July 7th, 2010

As we all know, seeing the optician is about more than whether you need correction for your sight – it’s also an opportunity to have your eye health and some general health issues checked out. The full eye examination is a blend of discussion with patients, using equipment and the optician’s knowledge and expertise. A common query from patients is that they worry if anything has been missed, or if their responses to the optician’s questions were the right ones. So here’s a comforting thought – the examination is a series of double and triple checks and we have several ways of diagnosing any problems.

When it comes to your prescription, and the confusing question of – which is better, number 1 or number 2? – Patients often worry that gave the wrong answer, and they won’t be able to see with their glasses! The first thing you should know is that every time the optician asks you the 1 or 2 question they are re-checking and refining results over and over again. They also use the information of your age, previous prescriptions and general eye health to make sure your results look logical. Some opticians also use Retinoscopy, a hand held instrument reads your prescription and gives them a valuable starting point and double check.

The puff of air test reads the internal pressure of the eye, as high pressure can be a sign of Glaucoma. But we don’t just rely on that reading – the optician also examines the area around the Optic nerve head to check for signs of Glaucoma too. Again your age and comparison to previous results gives extra reassurance.

By questioning you on your general health and that of your family, discussing your lifestyle and looking at your eye health history, opticians build up a picture of potential problems. Your standard of vision also gives clues. Ophthalmoscopy is the use of another hand held instrument that checks eye health, giving opticians the opportunity to look right inside the eye and check for signs of Retinal problems, Glaucoma, and Cataract. Retinal Imaging Cameras give a different view and allow us to store results so we can refer back to them.

A mix of experience, knowledge, training and different techniques give us masses of information about your eyes and health, so don’t worry that we’ll miss anything or that your response might not have been the right one. Your optician sees everything – and double checks it.

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Making Progress

Thursday, July 1st, 2010

It’s frightening how time flies, and in every aspect of our lives technology seems to accelerate at an amazing pace too. Every week we get new innovations that we could only have dreamed of ten years, or even ten months ago! Sight, and how to improve it is an important area that constantly changes in terms of new screening equipment, products, and surgical techniques.

As our population ages, more and more of us will need Varifocal or Progressive lenses, which help us to see near and far in one lens. Once you pass the age forty mark there’s no escape from needing this help for close work, and obviously we all lead busy, healthy active lives for much longer! So a Varifocal lens is an important part of everyday life for many wearers. It lets you see to thread a needle, look at your computer, and see into infinity – all with a thin sliver of plastic or glass!

Since they first appeared on the market around fifty years ago, Varifocals have evolved into complex new designs that make life easier for wearers. The manufacturers have also created different lens types for specific lifestyles, careers and hobbies.

Common problems with the earliest Varifocals were pretty drastic for some patients, who complained of headaches, and feelings of sea-sickness! For many it was a long struggle to adjust, with a high failure rate long-term. The single design did not suit everybody – for instance someone who drives for a living needs a different lens design from someone with a static desk job. The main problem with these early lenses was the distortion at the edge of the lens, which gave rise to all the odd effects and a very narrow clear area to look through. You also needed a huge frame to make the lenses work, which made specs heavy and thick for higher powers.

As designs changed, life became easier for wearers – and opticians! We could provide different solutions for patients who were struggling, and lenses that could be fitted into smaller and more fashionable frames. We have a range of lenses that suit every prescription and every budget. There are even tailor made lenses that fit wrap around frames, and help patients with specific optical needs. If you’ve tried them in the past, don’t be afraid to give Varifocals another chance, you’ll be pleasantly surprised by how much things have changed.

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Healthy Eyes Check List

Friday, June 25th, 2010

We all know that we need to take regular exercise and eat healthily to look after our bodies. There are screening programmes run by the NHS and lots of advice in the media about illness and wellness that help us to maintain good general health. More specifically, what can you do make sure our eyes are healthy? In your every day life, is there anything you can do? Here are our top five tips to ensure you have done all you can to safeguard your sight:

1.    Protect your eyes – wear safety shields or safety specs for dangerous jobs and follow health and safety guidelines at work. Speak to your HR department if you don’t think you have proper protective equipment. Wear UV protection outdoors, which can be a sunspec tint or clear UV coat, especially if you have light coloured eyes or a family history of Macular degeneration. Sunglasses should have the British Standards mark BS EN 1836 to prove they give full UV protection.

2.    Maintain Healthy Eyes – stop smoking! It’s a proven cause of cataract and Macular Degeneration. Eat a varied diet rich in green leafy vegetables and a mixture of different coloured fruits, salads, and veg. Ask your optician about retinal imagining, which will show up the earliest signs of disease. Nutritional supplements may help to prevent or halt symptoms.

3.    Be Aware – Ask around about your relative’s eye health history to make sure there are no hereditary diseases you should know about. If there is Glaucoma in your immediate family your eye tests will be free of charge when you’re over forty. If you suddenly develop any symptoms – flashing lights, blurred vision, floaters or eye pain you must be checked immediately. Although these often have simple explanations they can, in rare cases, be indicators of more serious problems.

4.    Visit Your Optician – Get into the routine of regular check ups, they’re equally important if you have glasses, contact lenses or no prescription at all. Your optician can keep a check on your sight and the health of your eye, as well as picking up some general health problems. They can refer you to the Hospital Eye Service or your GP for further treatment, and monitor results.

5.    Look After Your Eye Wear – Always wear your up to date prescription and follow instructions to the letter about contact lens care. Never over wear lenses or use solutions other than those suggested by your practitioner. Look after your specs to keep coatings, lenses and frames in tip-top condition. Scratches and blemishes on lenses may interfere with your sight and cause problems in conditions such as low light.

Prevention is always better than cure, and these simple steps will ensure you are doing all you can to maintain your precious gift of sight.

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The Perfect System

Sunday, June 20th, 2010

The eye is one of the most amazing organs in our bodies. Our sight is the most precious of our senses, and these small and perfect globes make sight happen by refracting light through it’s systems to help us make sense of our world. The eye is an incredibly complex and sensitive structure, all finely tuned, so it’s not surprising that tiny abnormalities result in visual defects and lead us to need help to correct our sight.

For perfect sight, light has to enter the eye and focus on the back surface. If your eyeball is too long, you’ll be short sighted. If it’s too short, you’ll be long sighted. Specs or contact lenses position the light in the right place so you can see clearly. If the curve of your cornea, the clear window at the front of the eye, is imperfect, then this will also create a problem with focussing.

Light enters the eye through the pupil, the black hole at the centre of the eye. It travels through the crystalline lens, a transparent structure that changes shape to let us see both close up and far away. Muscles hold the lens in place and stretch and relax to alter its shape and therefore its focus. If the lens is not the perfect size and shape then this will add to the visual defect of the eye. So you can see that there are several reasons why you may need glasses or contact lenses.

Once your optical system has been corrected and is working as it should, light reaches the light sensitive layer, the Retina, which lines the back of the eye. Here the image we see is upside down and in reverse! It travels to the brain through the optic nerve, where thankfully it’s put the right way round.

Ophthalmologists and opticians are lucky in that they’re the only clinicians who can examine their specialist organ without cutting their patient open! Thanks to ever advancing screening equipment and retinal imaging systems we can see inside your eyes and spot the very first signs of problems. This fantastic and beautiful system works on our behalf for every minute of our waking day, so look after it by attending your check ups and taking a few minutes to appreciate and maintain it.


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Kick the Habit

Wednesday, June 16th, 2010

Everyone would probably agree that sight is the most precious of our senses. Most of us could not imagine how we would conduct our lives if we couldn’t see. Yet millions of are risking our sight every day without being aware of it.

Nowadays we all know that smoking causes heart disease, lung disease and hundreds of other adverse effects in our bodies. Relatively few people however seem to attach their smoking habit to the risk of serious eye disease. There are approximately 13 million smokers in the UK, and they are twice as likely to lose their sight in later life as non-smokers. They are putting themselves in danger of developing Macular Degeneration, which affects sight by destroying the Macula, responsible for the centre of the field of vision. We use this delicate area of the eye for fine detail and damage there makes it difficult to carry on with everyday life as normal.

Macular Degeneration is the commonest cause of sight loss in the Western world, with an estimated half a million sufferers in the UK. 55,000 of these patients may have the disease due to a history of smoking. There are two forms of the disease, wet and dry. Wet can be treated by Laser if caught immediately, dry has no cure at present but taking dietary supplements may protect the eye and halt symptoms. Researchers are pinning their hopes on stem cell research at present, and developing techniques of transplanting cells from healthy areas of the eye to the diseased Macula.

Giving up smoking at any stage of life can help to reduce your chances of getting Macular Degeneration. At present it’s the only proven cause of the disease, so anything patients can do to protect their sight in later life is surely worth it – so if you’re still lighting up, kick that habit today!

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Glorious Glasses

Wednesday, May 26th, 2010

Glasses are a pretty unique product, vital to our lives and fulfilling more than just the function of correcting our sight. Take the time to seriously think about this fantastic invention that many of us would struggle to live without, and be thankful that you have the opportunity to use them in your daily life….

Glasses are an interesting blend of function and fashion. There is no other product that’s essential to our safety, comfort and wellbeing but that can also be part of our persona and our wardrobe. People use glasses to give them an image at home or work, to hide behind, to add to their character. Would Chris Evans, Harry Hill or Dame Edna be the same people without their iconic specs? Would we even recognise them?!  They are woven into our body language and used as a prop, and an indicator of our personalities. Bubbly kid’s presenters wear wacky, fun bright colours. Scary stern people who want to intimidate us wear strict sharp metals, (Ann Robinson you know who you are!) Stars ramp up the glamour with oversized sunglasses, (anyone mention Victoria Beckham and Madonna?) And yet for all these superficial factors they are still an essential medical device to many.

Corrective glasses enable us to function fully as we go about our daily lives. We wouldn’t be able to drive, work, or read without them in many cases. Ever forgotten your specs and tried to read the menu in a dimly lit-restaurant? Or tried to drive without the lenses that give you twenty-twenty vision? On one of our trips to help out at an overseas clinic this really was brought home to us. We met a lady who had been unable to feed her family since she broke her specs. We recycle unwanted glasses to impove the lives of people in developing countries. We fitted her with new specs and now she can work again and put food on the table. Her gratitude and complete joy at having her sight restored was something we will never forget, and it changed the life of both her and her family. That’s how important glasses can be.

So if you have a visual correction, don’t moan about them being a nuisance, or begrudge paying out for specs – be grateful that you can easily and cheaply give yourself the gift of sight.

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Diabetic Danger

Monday, April 12th, 2010

We are all aware that the so called ‘obesity epidemic’ is a growing cause of concern  to our future health. One of the problems associated with this is the rise in Diabetes, a complex disease that causes a wide array of symptoms and potential problems for sufferers. As Opticians we spend a great deal of time with Diabetic patients, as the effect on sight can be devastating.

Diabetic retinopathy is a major cause of blindness, and the condition must be carefully monitored and quickly treated to save a patient’s sight. Uncontrolled Diabetes causes blood vessels to grow and leak into the retina, destroying this vital layer of cells and leading to loss of sight. Research is currently involved in better retinal screening, improved treatment uptake, and new treatments. If the early signs of retinopathy are treated quickly by laser surgery sight can be saved.

At present we know that tight control of sugar levels in the first few years of diagnosis can affect development of Diabetic retinopathy in the future. Controlling blood pressure and cholesterol lower blood sugars, and therefore help to reduce symptoms. Patients taking Statins to control their cholesterol have a lower incidence of Diabetic Retinopathy, so it’s interesting that all the symptoms and good management are interlinked in combating the disease. As Diabetic Retinopathy is also connected to memory impairment and reduced brain function it really does make sense to take a holistic approach to managing Diabetes and controlling sugar levels.

Yearly eye exams are free to diabetic patients, so take advantage of this and make sure you have your check ups. Find an optician with OCT screening equipment – this takes a 3D scan of the retina and will pick up the every earliest signs of problems. Manage your symptoms and don’t mess with those sugar levels – as well as endangering your life and your sight here and now, you could be storing up problems for the future.

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Testing Times

Saturday, March 27th, 2010

It has been reported this week that paying for eye tests is becoming a thing of the past as so many opticians do the examination for free. This is a surprising development as the eye exam should involve many separate tests and thorough checking by a qualified professional. It should cover all the guidelines set out by the Government as well as individual investigation if problems are evident. How do you know if you’ve been checked properly?

The optician should take plenty of time to get to know you and your specific history and current symptoms, worries and problems. They need to know about optical problems in your family, medication you are using, and any odd optical effects or pain you are suffering. They also need to check the strength of your present glasses or contact lenses.

Pre-screening tests should cover your field of vision, the internal pressure of the eye, and Retinal Imaging or Ocular Coherance Tomography. All of these tests cover every aspect of your sight and eye health, so check that your optician can do them and has the training to interpret the results. Optical support staff may do the pre-screening tests for you, but your optician should be the one who looks at the results with you.

The optician will then check your sight, and the health of your eyes. They may need to refer you on for further treatment, or suggest a visit to your GP for problems such as high blood pressure. They will also discuss your needs with regard to spectacle or contact lenses.

Some opticians are also trained in specific areas such as sports vision, therapeutic contact lens wear, behavioural optometry and treatment for Dyslexic patients. As in every aspect of life you get what you pay for – so what are getting if the service is free?!! Scour the web and find an optician who will do the job properly, and don’t be afraid to phone ahead for advice.

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Could you be Fabulous At 50?

Sunday, May 3rd, 2009

Whether or not you are a specs wearer you may have heard of a lens called a Varifocal. It goes by many names – progressive lenses, multifocals, PALS  (progressive addition lenses) or the world famous brand name of Varilux. They all refer to the same thing, a lens which blends together your distance, intermediate and reading prescription to give you back the sight of your youth.

This year marks the fiftieth anniversary of a lens which many customers think is some new fangled idea that will be difficult to wear and is expensive. History speaks for itself though, this is a tried and tested product which has made millions of lives easier, using technology which has constantly evolved.

The varifocal lens was launched in 1959, the first true innovation in optics for many years. These early lenses were hard to adapt to, but in 1972 the product made great leaps forward and the usable areas of the lens increased. As time went on the lenses were improved further by adapting the lens design for different prescriptions, and reducing the distortion on the edges of the lens that made it difficult to wear.

These lenses are now available for most prescriptions, in different materials to make them thinner and lighter, go dark in the sun, or for tinted sunglasses. They fit in most fashionable frames, and there are different lenses for specific jobs, hobbies and professions. If you need help for reading and distance, then varifocals are the state of the art solution. They’ve grown up at the age of fifty, along with the Baby Boomers who now use them to make the most of their busy lives.

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