Cataract Surgery
Like any surgery, cataract surgery can be a cause of anxiety in many people. Fortunately, the risk of complications is lower than ever. This surgery, which involves replacing the cloudy lens in the eye with a clear synthetic lens, is performed at an outpatient clinic under local anesthesia. It doesn’t hurt. One walks in and walks out. The implant lens lasts for 100 years. Immediately after the surgery, most patients see clearly. Special healing drops are taken for several weeks. If glasses are needed, Medicare insurance pays for most or all of the new prescription. Our doctors are experts at diagnosing cataracts and caring for you postoperatively. We check you yearly after the postop stage. In the hands of a gifted cataract surgeon such as our consultant, Dr. Botelho, you are very likely to have an optimal outcome.
WHAT IS A HIGH INDEX LENS?
Those of us who have high prescriptions, whether nearsighted or farsighted, know how important it is to have eyewear without thick “Coke bottle” lenses. Standard plastic lenses can be very thick and heavy when compared to other lens materials like polycarbonate and high index. High index lenses are the thinnest lightest materials available. When combined with no-glare technology, many people with high prescriptions can wear rimless eyewear without the lenses appearing too thick. Another advantage of high index lenses is the quality of vision is better than it is with regular plastic or polycarbonate lenses, as there is less chromatic aberration. Most types of progressive multifocal lens designs can be made in high index materials.
BLOOD PRESSURE AND THE EYE
An eye check can reveal much about your overall health. We can actually see the arteries and veins in the retina. We diagnose hardening of the arteries, high cholesterol, and other vascular diseases. Retinal photos are helpful in early diagnosis of subtle problems. When your blood pressure is high, it puts strain on the arteries and veins of the body, causing the appearance of these vessels to change. We can see the change in appearance when we look at your eyes during a dilated eye exam and through retinal photographs and help to determine whether your blood pressure is controlled or not. High blood pressure can affect the health of your eyes, increasing your risk of blocked blood vessels in the eye, optic neuritis, glaucoma, stroke, and possibly macular degeneration.
ASTIGMATISM
Astigmatism is one of the most common and poorly understood refractive problems of the eye. If you suffer from astigmatism you may not even know about it. Astigmatism is caused by an “out of round” problem of the cornea and or the lens of the eye. Astigmatism is described by the second and third numbers of your prescription. Eyestrain and eye fatigue result from strain on the eye’s auto-regulate mechanism. Large amounts of astigmatism can cause amblyopia – a potentially permanent vision loss in children. The most common problem with astigmatism is mild tolerable blur when looking at small targets. While astigmatism can affect near and farsighted people, it is usually most noticeable in your night-time vision.
WHAT IS 20/20?
During the 1800’s a typical exam room was 20 feet long and those that could read the 8.75mm high letters had “perfect” vision. Someone who did not have perfect vision, say 20/40, could only see letters twice as big as the 20/20 letters. The first 20 stands for the twenty foot testing distance, and the second number stands for the size letters necessary to be seen by the patient. For example, the big “E” on the chart is 20/400, or twenty times bigger than the 20/20 letters. Now we know some people can see better, like 20/15 or even 20/10. The vision requirements for the Rhode Island DMV are for 20/40 vision in at least one eye. While 20/20 remains the standard, we always try to help our patients see their best.
HIGH CHOLESTEROL AND VISION
As you may have read in the article about macular degeneration in this newsletter, high cholesterol can affect your vision. Besides increasing your risk for heart disease, high cholesterol can cause blockages in the small vessels of your eyes, leading to a loss of vision through optic neuritis or a blood vessel occlusion. High cholesterol is also a risk factor for stroke, which can cause much of your visual field to be affected. There is some evidence that a class of cholesterol-lowering medication called statins may protect from macular degeneration in addition to lowering your risk for heart disease. We can detect high cholesterol in young individuals by noticing changes on the cornea called arcus.
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