Refractive Errors
MYOPIA:
Myopia is perhaps the most common refractive error that brings a person to the eye doctor. The myope can see well at near but cannot see distant objects clearly, depending on how strong of a prescription they may need. To appreciate what a very myopic person experiences, you can hold a magnifying glass over one eye and try to see an object that is far away. The blur one sees is the same as a myope or “near-sighted” person. If you look at something up close through the magnifier, it looks nice and clear and enlarged, but you would not have functional distance vision. Uncorrected myopia interferes with driving, classroom activities, crossing streets safely, and many other otherwise normal daily activities.
HYPEROPIA:
Hyperopia is different than myopia due to the fact that many hyperopic people can compensate for this type of error by “over-focusing”. The hyperopic person has to focus his eyes as if reading a book in order to see a distant object clearly, and then has to focus even closer than where the book is to see to read the book. The higher the power of the hyperopia, the more over-focusing work the person has to do to compensate. This leads to eye fatigue, headaches, and reduced attention to reading near work, and is a common cause of loss of speed and efficiency when a student or employee is required to do near tasks. In the higher powers, it becomes more difficult to see even at a distance without correction and near viewing with clarity for any length of time almost impossible.
ASTIGMATISM:
Astigmatism is easiest to visualize as being a blurred image being presented to the retina when the lens system of the eye is not shaped round like a magnifying lens, but is shaped more like a football. A glass football would warp the light coming through it so the image it presents would be distorted, blurred and unrepresentative of the object being viewed. Your eye doctor makes sure the astigmatism power of your correction is placed in exactly the right orientation in front of the eye lens system so the optical distortion is neutralized and a clear image is the result.
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Glaucoma
Glaucoma is a common disease of the optic nerve, the part of the eye that carries images we see to our brain. Each optic nerve has nearly 1 million fibers when we are born. Glaucoma causes progressive death of these nerve fibers. Eventually it can lead to complete blindness.
There are many types of glaucoma. Acute glaucoma is uncommon and very symptomatic. Patients have pain and decreased vision. They usually seek treatment soon because of their symptoms.
“Chronic open-angle glaucoma,” or COAG, is by far the most common type of glaucoma. Unlike acute glaucoma, COAG is a very insidious disease and is completely without symptoms until major damage has occurred to the optic nerve. Unfortunately damage from glaucoma cannot be reversed. COAG is the single most-important reason for having regular eye exams because blindness can be prevented in almost all patients by early detection and treatment.
DIAGNOSIS
Glaucoma is usually diagnosed or suspected based on the findings of a careful, dilated eye examination. Early findings can be very subtle and detectable only by very skilled eye doctors. Special, painless tests are then usually done to confirm the diagnosis and monitor for progression of the disease. These special tests include pachymetry (measuring corneal thickness), visual fields (testing peripheral vision) and ocular coherence tomography (measuring the thickness of the retinal nerve fiber layer).
TREATMENT
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Glaucoma is usually treated by using eye drops to lower the fluid pressure inside the eye. There are many different eye drops for glaucoma and your eye doctor will choose the drop that is best for you. Sometimes eye drops are inadequate or poorly tolerated and other therapies, such as laser procedures or surgery, are required. The doctors at Pacific Vision Medical Center have the knowledge, lasers and surgical skills to do whatever is appropriate to control your glaucoma. |
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