For over a decade, Dr. William Segal, Dr. Marc lay, and the rest of the staff at Georgia Eye Physicians and Surgeons, P.C. have provided patients with a full array of routine eye care, eye disease treatment, and refractive eye surgery. Over the years we’ve published many articles explaining the ins and outs of various ocular procedures, like how LASIK eye surgery can correct refractive errors and reduce or even eliminate the need for glasses or contacts or how intraocular lens replacement surgery using the technologically advanced LenSx® laser can significantly improve vision that has been clouded by cataracts. However we also understand that sometimes the best explanations can fall short without some sort of visual representation. This diagram of the various specialized parts that make up the eye can provide some valuable insight into the eye services we offer at Georgia Eye.
Understanding how your eyes work is the first step to keeping them healthy and keeping your vision sharp. If you have any questions you would like to ask Dr. William Segal or Dr. Marc Lay about problems you may be having with your vision , or would like to schedule an eye exam, please contact Georgia Eye Physicians and Surgeons today to make an appointment. Be sure to follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Google+ for more information on how to keep your vision healthy.
At Georgia Eye Physicians and Surgeons, P.C. we provide patients with a full array of routine eye care, eye disease treatment, and refractive eye surgery. While Dr. William Segal uses the latest and most advanced technology to treat conditions ranging from simple astigmatism to cataracts or glaucoma, we also realize that preventative care plays a major role in keeping your eyes healthy and your vision sharp. It is important not to take healthy eyesight for granted, so here are four basic guidelines that can help you to be proactive about your eye health.
Watch What You Eat
Studies have shown that there are several different antioxidants and nutrients that are linked to a lower risk of common eye conditions, including lutein, omega-3 fatty acids, and vitamins C and E. Dark leafy greens like spinach, kale and Brussels sprouts, as well as dark berries, like blueberries and blackberries, are rich in lutein, a type of carotenoid that protects against macular degeneration and foods rich in omega-3s, like walnuts and fresh cold-water fish, have been found to reduce inflammation in the blood vessels of the eye. Drinking sufficient amounts of water is also necessary in order for the eyes to produce tears, which keep the eyes moist and nourished.
Wear Eye Protection
An estimated 2.4 million eye injuries occur in the United States each year and 90% of them could have been avoided with protective eyewear. Safety glasses and goggles, safety shields, and eye guards are all available in our on-site optical center and should be considered a necessity whenever playing sports or doing activities around the home. Ultraviolet light from the sun can significantly damage the eyes, contributing to cataracts and macular degeneration even on a cloudy day, so always wear sunglasses with 100 percent UVA and UVB protection.
Avoid External Irritants
Intense concentration while driving or working on a computer can cause eye strain, which can lead to dry eyes, blurry vision, and headaches. Take breaks from prolonged focus by following the “20-20-20” rule: every 20 minutes look at something 20 feet away for 20 seconds. Indoor heating systems or the air recycling systems on board an airplane can also make the air extremely dry, potentially making the eyes red, itchy, and irritated, especially for contact lens wearers. Finally, cigarette smoking both contributes to the development of cataracts and can cause optic nerve damage, and so should definitely be avoided.
Get Your Eyes Examined
Last but not least, regular eye exams are absolutely essential for maintaining your visual health. In many cases, a comprehensive optical examination can even detect serious systemic health issues, such as diabetes, before any symptoms have started to manifest. Children should have their first eye exam between the ages of 6 and 12 months and adults, especially those over 40, should have yearly eye exams in order to help prevent age-related ocular conditions like macular degeneration, cataracts, and glaucoma.
If you have any questions you would like to ask Dr. William Segal or Dr. Marc Lay about problems you may be having with your vision, or would like to schedule an eye exam, please contact Georgia Eye Physicians and Surgeons today to make an appointment. Be sure to follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Google+ for more information on how to keep your vision healthy.
Most of us are familiar with the laundry list of minor irritations and inconveniences that accompany growing older. But many people fail to take into consideration the effects that aging can have on your vision. In fact, changes in vision can often be one of the first and most undeniable signs of aging. As time passes, the functional abilities of the eye wane, as do the receptive, storage, and the analytical capacities of the central visual system as a whole. Understanding what this means in layman’s terms and being aware of the changes that can occur will help you know what to expect as you grow older and distinguish common complaints from serious eye conditions. Here are some of the most significant changes that can affect aging eyes.
The Eyes Lose Close Focus
Normally, the lens of the eye flexes and bends, changing its shape to help the eye focus. However, as we get older, the lens slowly becomes more rigid, making it increasingly difficult to focus on nearby objects, specifically those closer than two feet. This change in vision, called presbyopia, ultimately affects nearly everyone to varying degrees, making magnifying reading glasses, bifocals, or glasses with variable-focus lenses a necessity.
Color Perception Changes
Over time, damage from ultraviolet light and other environmental factors can make the lens of the eye to take on a yellowish tinge. This can cause colors to look less bright and make contrasts between different colors more difficult to see. Blues may look more gray and blue print or background may look washed out. These changes are insignificant for most people, but if they seriously impair vision they may require intraocular lens replacement surgery to rectify.
The Eyes Need More Light
Increased thickness and density in the lens means that less light passes through to the retina at the back of the eye. This combined with the fact that the retina itself grows less sensitive means that an average 60-year-old needs approximately 3 times more light to read than an average 20-year-old. While some difficulty seeing in dim light is common as we get older, a significant loss in night vision may also be one of the signs of worsening cataracts and so should be closely monitored.
The Eyelids Sag and Droop
Over time, the muscles around the eye weaken and the tendons stretch, allowing the eyelid to hang away from the eyeball. This condition (called ectropion) may interfere with lubrication of the eyeball and, because the number of cells that produce fluids to lubricate the eyes also tends to decrease with age, chronic dry eye may potentially become a serious problem.
These are only some of the many different changes that can affect the eyes as we grow older. If you have started to notice significant and persistent changes in your vision, please contact Georgia Eye Physicians and Surgeons today to schedule a comprehensive eye examination. Be sure to follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Google+ for more information on how to keep your vision healthy.
We’ve all experienced the familiar scratchy, burning sensation associated with dry eyes, but for some that persistently irritating condition never seems to go away. Studies show that close to 8 percent of women age 50 or older in the United States and about 4 percent of men in that same group experience symptoms of chronic dry eye, a condition that, if left untreated, can serious impact your vision and eye health. Here is some helpful information about the causes of chronic dry eye, as well as an explanation of some of the ways that the condition can be treated.
The problem of chronically dry eyes may seem simple, but it can actually be the result of a number of different underlying issues. For some, dry eyes are caused by a lack of adequate tears. As the eyes grow older, tear production can naturally lessen, but certain medical conditions and a number of prescription medications can also significantly reduce the amount of tears the eyes produce. Others may have ample amounts of tears, but are subjected to environmental factors that cause those tears to evaporate too quickly to fully perform their functions. Windy or dry conditions or a large amount of smoke in the air can all cause tears to evaporate more quickly than is normal. Similarly, intense visual concentration, like that experienced during reading or driving for example, tends to reduce the rate at which the eye blinks, also accelerating tear evaporation and contributing to eye fatigue. Finally, a small number of patients may have an imbalance in the composition of the tears themselves. The tear film has three basic layers: oil, water and mucus, and problems with any of these layers can cause dry eyes. For example, inflammation along the edge of their eyelids (blepharitis), rosacea, or other skin disorders can all clog the meibomian glands and interrupt the flow of oils into the tears. The resulting tears, being mostly water, do not adhere to the eye and so flow out or evaporate far more readily.
While the early symptoms of dry eye can seem like only minor irritants, the condition can actually be relatively serious. If allowed to continue for a prolonged period of time, chronic dry eye can lead to an increased risk of developing serious eye infections and even long-term damage to the surface of the eyes themselves in the form of corneal ulcers. Fortunately there are a number of treatment options available. Mild cases can generally be treated with artificial tears or an anti-inflammatory medication like cyclosporine, which decreases corneal damage, increases basic tear production, and reduces symptoms of dry eye. In some cases dietary supplements of omega-3 fatty acids may also decrease irritation. More severe and chronic cases may require the use of tiny punctual plugs, which are inserted into the tear drains at the corners of the upper and lower eyelids. Restricting the amount of fluid that can drain from the eye conserves naturally-occurring tears and keeps the eye better lubricated. These tear plugs come in either silicone (permanent) or collagen (dissolvable) varieties and the dissolvable variety are frequently used to keep the eyes well moistened following many forms of eye surgery.
Chronic dry eye is just one of the many different eye conditions that we can treat at Georgia Eye Physicians and Surgeons. If you have any concerns about the health of your eyes, or would like to schedule an eye exam, please contact Dr. William Segal or Dr. Marc Lay today to make an appointment. Be sure to follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Google+ for more information on how to keep your vision at its best.
One concern that many of the patients at Georgia Eye Physicians and Surgeons bring to our attention has to do with little “cobwebs” or specks that seem to float about in their field of vision. These small, dark, shadowy shapes can look like spots, thread-like strands, or squiggly lines and just seem to lazily drift through the field of vision, moving as the eyes move and darting away when you try to look at them directly. These little visual irregularities are called floaters, and they are a relatively common, and usually harmless, by-product of the eyes’ internal anatomy.
The eye itself is actually a mostly-hollow sphere, filled with a clear, gel-like substance called the vitreous that helps the eye maintain its round shape. Throughout our youth, the vitreous has a consistency not unlike that of Jell-O, but as we age it begins to dissolve and liquefy in the center. Floaters are the result of tiny pieces of the vitreous gel breaking loose within the inner back portion of the eye and floating freely in the liquid, like bits of ice floating in water. While the eye cannot actually see the tiny bits themselves, the shadows that they cast on the retina as light passes through the eye create vaguely translucent images. This is why they are much more noticeable when you are looking at a bright, clear sky or a white computer screen. Floaters are, literally, floating free inside the eye, and so they move as the eye moves, creating the impression that they are “drifting” and never staying still when you try to focus on them.
Floaters are normally a relatively harmless condition. They generally do not impair vision and are likely to disappear over time. However, in some cases, they may be an indicator of a more serious eye problem called a retinal detachment. If the vitreous in the center of the eye becomes so liquefied that it can no longer maintain its shape, the heavier, more peripheral vitreous gel can collapse inward, pulling away from the retina or dislodging the retina itself from the inner back portion of the eye. This manual tugging or tearing of the retina stimulates the light sensitive photoreceptor cells, creating electrical impulses that are sent up the optic nerve and interpreted by the brain as bursts or streaks of light called flashes, or photopsia. This phenomenon can also occur when a sufficiently powerful blow to the head causes the retina to shift, causing the victim to temporarily “see stars.” If you notice a sudden appearance of a shower of floaters, particularly if it is accompanied by flashes, you should seek medical attention immediately. When addressed promptly, a detached or torn retina can be corrected with laser surgery or a freezing treatment that re-adheres the retina to the eye wall.
If you are concerned about the state of your vision, or are interested in any of the services we provide, please contact Georgia Eye Physicians and Surgeons to schedule an eye exam with Dr. William Segal or Dr. Marc Lay. Be sure to follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Google+ for more tips for healthy eyes.
At Georgia Eye Physicians and Surgeons we’re committed to exceptional eye care for our patients and their families. We know how much the health of your eyes means for your quality of life. We’re committed to serving your complete eye care needs with the respect and care we would use in treating our own family.