Here’s an unexpected differential diagnosis for anyone who’s ever had pink eye – eye herpes. As nasty as that sounds, at least you can tell everyone the strain of herpetic eye disease is typically type I, which is the same strain that causes cold sores, rather than the type II strain of the herpes down there.
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Have you ever walked outside and suddenly everyone is wondering why tears are streaming down your face, and even more peculiarly, only down one side of your face? Perhaps the sight of a beautiful blue sky moved you to tears, or perhaps you are just experiencing a bit of epiphora. Though a watering eye, also known as epiphora, itself is not harmful, sometimes it can be a symptom of something else that needs addressing. As the tear film is the first refractive surface that light meets when entering the eye, an overflow of tears can cause blurred vision, which can be inconvenient, such as when driving or trying to watch your bride walk down the aisle towards you, and on occasion can also be a little embarrassing.
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The onward march of time is relentless and unstoppable. For some, age creeps up slowly; for others, one day you’re loving life in your mid-twenties and the next day you’re waking up with back pain and stiff knees, not to mention those new gray hairs. Unfortunately, even our eyes and vision cannot escape the inevitable, but knowing what are expected changes to vision with age can help you prepare (at least emotionally).
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Honey. Sweet, sticky, golden, delicious, anti-inflammatory, and anti-microbial honey.
In addition to being a delicious condiment for your breakfast, it turns out that honey – manuka honey in particular – can also be quite beneficial in the treatment of dry eye disease (DED).
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Unfortunately, the short answer to this is yes. But fortunately, cancer of the eye, also known as ocular cancers, is rare. The American Cancer Society estimates just under 3500 new cases diagnosed in 2019 across the whole of the United States.
Cancer refers to a condition where abnormal cells grow and multiply in an uncontrolled manner. The proliferation and spread of these cells can damage and destroy healthy cells in the surrounding tissues, interfering with the normal function of vital organ systems in the body. When it comes to the eye, the majority of ocular cancers are considered secondary cancers, which means the malignant cells originated in another part of the body but then spread (or metastasized) to the eye. A primary ocular cancer is one that first began in the eye itself.
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Imagine you’ve just been told by your eye doctor that you are going to lose your vision to an irreversible and incurable disease – what do you feel? Panic, stress, anxiety, feelings of being overwhelmed, powerlessness, hopelessness, fear? Probably all the above to some degree or another. These feelings may often persist for many patients diagnosed with a progressive sight-threatening condition, beyond the initial breaking of the bad news. You don’t have to stretch your imagination much further to figure that living with a visual impairment can take a toll on an individual’s mental health.
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The process that we know as “vision” involves multiple, complex functions and numerous anatomical structures along the visual pathway. A disruption to any of these functions – from the movement of the eye muscles to the focusing of light into the eyeball to the transmission of the visual signal through the brain to interpretation of this signal – can result in various problems, including headaches, double vision, failure to process the visual signals meaningfully, loss of areas of the visual field, and of course, blurry vision.
For the majority of humans, blurry vision arises from problems at a specific step in the visual pathway – the refraction and focusing of light through the eyeball. This leads to what we call “refractive error.”
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The success rate of cataract surgery in the developed world is typically quoted as 98% or higher. However, as with any procedure performed on the complex human body, things can go wrong. Approximately 0.5% of patients undergoing cataract surgery experience a severe complication with significant visual impact; in the USA with around 2-3 million surgeries performed every year, this represents up to 15 000 patients with vision loss following what should be a sight-restoring procedure. Although a 98% success rate is pretty good, it’s important not to go into cataract surgery “blind” to the potential complications.
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So, you’ve decided that it’s time to have your cataracts removed. This became clear after you mistook Joan’s roaming pet rabbit for the bowl during your weekly casual game of lawn bowls; unfortunately, due to your cataracts this is currently the only thing that is clear. A brief foray into the world wide web using the search term “cataract surgery” quickly makes evident that while the surgical procedure itself is exceedingly common and relatively straightforward, there are a few decisions to be made – for example, whether you go with FLACS or phaco, and which IOL option is best for you, whatever these words mean!
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Putting a knife to the eye sounds pretty horrific, like some sort of method of “enhanced interrogation.” In fact, the eyeball is such a sensitive, squeamish part of the body that there are even websites listing horror movies with the worst eyeball-involving scenes (Google it!). Ommetaphobia aside, a scalpel in the right hands can provide sight-restoring, quality-of-life-redeeming treatment to an eye affected by cataract.
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Here’s an unexpected differential diagnosis for anyone who’s ever had pink eye – eye herpes. As nasty as that sounds, …
Have you ever walked outside and suddenly everyone is wondering why tears are streaming down your face, and even more peculiarly, …
The onward march of time is relentless and unstoppable. For some, age creeps up slowly; for others, one day you’re …
