September 25th, 2011 by KerriSparling in True Stories
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Normally, my vision is better than 20/20. (20/15 is mine, which always prompts my eye doctor to say “Oh, you should be a pilot!” and then I laugh my face off because, really, do you know me, lady?) I’m lucky not to wear glasses or contacts at this point in my life, especially considering that everyone else in my family needs a little visual help at this point.
I’m grateful that my vision is excellent most of the time, despite a few diabetic retinopathy issues. But for the last 48 hours, it’s been a little dodgy, and managing diabetes while my eyesight is impaired has been challenging. Yesterday was the worst day for this latest relapse of the ol’ corneal abrasion, so my vision was very limited in the affected eye (and the other eye was swollen in a lovely, compassionate response to its friend’s injury, so basically I look like I’d been tagged in the face with a baseball – twice.).
My Dexcom graph was next-to-impossible to read. Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at Six Until Me.*
August 31st, 2011 by Dr. Val Jones in Audio, Expert Interviews
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Dori Carlson, O.D.
In a recent interview with the president of the American Optometric Association (AOA), Dr. Dori Carlson, I learned the surprising statistic that about 1 in 4 school age children have an undetected or undiagnosed vision problem. School vision screenings, while helpful, still miss more than 75% of these problems. And for those kids who are discovered to have a vision problem during a school screening, upwards of 40% receive no follow up after the diagnosis. Clearly, we need to do better at diagnosing and treating childhood visual deficits. My full conversation with Dr. Carlson can be listened to below:
Dr. Carlson told me that the solution involves Read more »
August 12th, 2011 by Shadowfax in Opinion, True Stories
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Yesterday, I presented the case of a woman with double vision and ptosis and challenged you all to a game of “spot the lesion.” To be honest, I found this stuff impenetrable as a medical student and it was only by sheer force of will that I was able to commit it to memory for exactly long enough to pass a test on it before immediately purging it from my memory. I did this several times for various board exams and such, but it never really “stuck.” Hated neuro beyond words, I did.
As mind-numbing as I found it all in the abstract, I get excited about these cases in application. I may not remember where exactly the internal capsule is or what it does, but when I see someone with an interesting neuro deficit due to a lesion there, all of a sudden it makes so much more sense, and is, dare I say it, cool. I know, kinda sad.
This case is as classic (and cool) as you will ever see. It’s a complete palsy of the Oculomotor Nerve (CN 3 for those keeping score at home).
So how do you approach figuring that out? Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at Movin' Meat*
June 12th, 2011 by Paul Auerbach, M.D. in Health Tips
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As I write this post, I’m wearing my new Superfocus glasses. I was given the glasses by the company to demonstrate, and they are nothing less than remarkable. I’ve used them mostly in two very common settings for me—indoors and outdoors. In both situations, they performed very well.
Superfocus lenses work by mimicking a young, healthy human eye. Each lens is actually a set of two lenses (flexible and firm). The flexible, inner lens has a transparent membrane attached to a rigid surface, sandwiching a small amount of clear fluid. The bridge (across the nose) connecting the lenses allows you to adjust the shape of the flexible lens. Slide the tab along the bridge to find the exact correction for the particular user. The intent is to achieve clear, undistorted vision within any lighting or distance.
You can learn a great deal from the Superfocus website about the benefits of adjustable lenses, how to obtain the glasses, and so forth. I won’t reiterate information from the website, but rather discuss how I have used these glasses and discuss their performance based on my own experience.
First, I used them during my work in the E.R. as a physician. Read more »
This post, Superfocus Glasses May Improve Vision In The E.R., was originally published on
Healthine.com by Paul Auerbach, M.D..
June 27th, 2010 by Medgadget in Better Health Network, News, Research
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Researchers at MIT have developed a method of using a basic cellphone coupled with a cheap and simple plastic device clipped onto the screen to estimate refractive errors and focal range of eyes.
Because of its simplicity, and the fact that soon just about everyone will have access to a mobile phone, eye exams may become available to the whole world at little to no cost. Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at Medgadget*
