Eye Health from Brookside Optometric

Today’s seniors are more active than ever and life expectancy is longer than ever. That is why annual eye exams are very important as you get older. Seniors are more susceptible to developing diabetes and high blood pressure - both of which can affect your vision. Cataracts and macular degeneration are two more eye diseases that can develop over the years. Early detection for any of these eye conditions is important in maintaining good visual outcomes.

The terms nearsighted and farsighted are often confused but the easiest way to remember which condition you have is that “you are what you can do best without glasses.” If you see better at near without glasses, then you are nearsighted (myopic). Conversely if you see better at a distance without glasses, then you are farsighted (hyperopic). With farsightedness, a person has difficulty and discomfort when reading or doing computer work.

Brookside Optometric Group is proud to partner with Discovery Challenge Academy to provide free eye exams and new glasses to local high school students. Based in Lathrop, Discovery Challenge Academy (DCA) opened in January 2017 as a partnership between the California National Guard and San Joaquin County Office of Education.

Kendra emailed us last week with a question: would we be willing to help a young man who had lost everything in the Paradise fire? Doug, the boyfriend of Kendra’s daughter, was downhearted, like all the fire victims in Paradise. Despite his personal losses, as a heavy equipment operator he will be helping to clean up the devastation his friends and neighbors have experienced as well. Doug has had poor color vision his whole life, and Kendra wanted to do something spectacular to raise his spirits.

The Third Week of August marks the 5th Annual observance of Contact Lens Health Week. Since Soft Contact Lenses were first invented in 1961, and introduced to the USA by Bausch and Lomb in 1971, the “uniqueness” of the experience has faded a bit and people have often become somewhat lax in their care of these medical devices we are inserting into our bodies. Summer is the perfect time to review some of the practical steps we can take to ensure a safe and comfortable relationship with your contact lenses.

Part I of this blog introduced vocabulary for the various types and severities of hereditary color deficiencies. Part II explains how, for the first time ever, we can help color deficient patients distinguish colors. Disclaimer: lots of doctor terminology ahead (but there’s no other way to explain it). If you only want to know how you can try out the extraordinary new color vision lens called EnChroma, available exclusively at Brookside Optometric Group, skip to the last 2 paragraphs below.

I am excited to try a newly released photochromatic lens. The SunSync Drive XT is a photochromatic lens that responds to ultraviolet light and also to visible light. The big advantage to responding to visible light is that it will get dark in the car while traditional photochromatic lenses will not. Thus to simplify, the brighter it is, the darker it will get.

Want to track your daily activity and give back to those in need simply by wearing your glasses? Now you can do both with Level smart glasses.

Designed in the U.S. and handcrafted in Italy, the smart glasses are a perfect mix of style and function. Built-in activity-tracking technology logs your daily activity, step count, calories burned, and more. View your activity throughout the day on your phone—the glasses sync wirelessly with the Level mobile app, and if you ever misplace your glasses, you can easily track them down using the app.

Refractive surgery to help rid people of the need for glasses is one of eye care’s most rapidly changing specialties. It has evolved from the early days of incision RK surgery to the advent of laser procedures and corneal implantation surgeries.

House cleaning, home improvements and yard work: for many Americans, these projects define this time of year. But, did you know home projects like these can be a major threat to eye safety? All too often, when we’re working around the house and doing chores that we've done a thousand times before without incident, we forget about the risks we take by not protecting our eyes but all it takes is one split-second accident that could damage your vision for a lifetime." According to the American Academy of Optometry, nearly half of all serious eye injuries occur at home, yet only 35 percent of Americans wear protective eyewear during projects that could pose a threat to their eyes.

“You’ve got cataracts”.

These three words can still fill a patient’s mind with worry and fear when their doctor has to utter them. Memories still linger of parents and grandparents going to the hospital and needing a week of bed rest only to be chained to thick glasses for the rest of their lives once the surgery was complete. Luckily for all of us those days are a thing of the past.

These days cataract surgery is a 20-minute procedure that should not be feared. With modern implant surgery bed rest is not necessary and the visual outcomes are often nothing short of miraculous.

So what are cataracts and how do you fix them?

Everyone’s eyes have two lenses they use to see with. The cornea is the lens on the front of the eye where contact lenses are placed. The cornea’s job is to help you see distance objects clearly. If the cornea has an improper power than contact lenses, glasses or LASIK surgery is necessary to provide clear distance vision.

Now that our kids are back to school it is important for parents to feel confident that their child is seeing clearly to optimize his or her learning experience. An estimated 80 percent of information processed in school is through vision. When most people think about seeing clearly, they think of visual acuity, or being able to see “20/20.”

It's another of those hot central valley summers and many of us are choosing to keep cool by enjoying watersports. Boating, wave running and swimming are all excellent ways to beat the heat but there are a few things we all need to watch out for when it comes to our eyes and our eye health.

Do you stare at the computer more than 4 hours a day? Do your eyes feel tired and strained by the middle or end of the work day? Do you regularly experience headaches by the end of your day or sooner? Does your neck and back ache as you tilt your chin and adjust your head to see the computer screen through your progressive glasses all day?  These concerns and more are all related to a condition known as computer vision syndrome, also known as digital eye strain. If this sounds like you or a loved one, don’t worry—you’re not alone. Digital eye strain affects more than 70 percent of the approximately 143 million Americans who work on a computer on a daily basis, according to the American Optometric Association (AOA).

School is back! And it’s time to make sure your child can learn by making sure they can see well. Many kids who do not do well in school often need glasses to improve their vision in order to help them see the classroom board or to decrease eyestrain while reading. 

If a child has a difficult time learning in school, is unable to comprehend material, or has a short attention span, it could possibly be the result of a vision problem. Before any child is diagnosed with a learning disability, he/she is required to get an eye exam first.

Here are some common vision problems: