eyes

Sneezing [Show Notes]

 in Podcasts  tagged abs / brainstem / diaphragm / episode / eyes / irritant / nose / sneeze center / sneezing / tongue by

Sneezing is very forceful in your body.

Review

The inside of your nose is covered with mucous membranes, and that mucus traps up things so they don’t get into your lungs.

Some little particles float through the air and into your nose.  They will land on those mucous membranes and irritate it.  That irritation sends a signal to your sneeze center of your brainstem.

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Brainstem

Sneezing Details

The sneeze center sends out several signals.  One goes to your diaphragm to tell it to compress the lungs to force the air out.  Another signal goes to your tongue to have it direct the air through your nose.  The last signal goes to your eyes – it is really true, you can’t sneeze with your eyes open.

So your abs contract and your diaphragm forces your lungs to exhale, your tongue directs the air to go out your nose, so the mucus plus the things that irritated your nose flies out of your face.

*Mythbusters sneeze experiment*

The proven statistics on sneezes is that they travel about 40 mph but only go about 20 feet.

Holding in a sneeze can be painful and damaging.  By holding in all that air, you can rupture your eardrums, damage your tear ducts in your eyes, fracture your nasal cartilage or bones, or cause nose bleeds because of the blast against your sinus passages.

Sneezing Advice

There’s so many tricks about trying to stop a sneeze – most of them involve counter-pressure on other spots on your face or body.

The best advice for stopping a sneeze is to blow your nose to get out the irritants before the body blasts it out with a sneeze.

You will never ever sneeze when you’re sleeping.  So morning sneezing fits are normal for a lot of people.  This is because all the dust and stuff you breathe in while you’re sleeping finally irritates your body.  So morning congestion and sneezing is normal to help clear all of that out.

We’re unsure why people will sneeze in other situations like sudden exposure to bright light or changes in air pressure or temperature.  Another unsual trigger is an over-full stomach.  Multiple people have reported they feel nauseous and once they sneeze, the sick feeling goes away.  I dunno….

If you do have to sneeze, make sure you cover your face.  Use the elbow technique!

*Mythbusters hanky*

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Music Credits:  “Radio Martini” Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)  Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0  http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/

Eye Conditions 4 [Show Notes]

 in Podcasts  tagged corneal dystrophy / corneal erosion / dry eyes / electronics / episode / eyes / hormones / presbyopia / reading glasses / Sleep / stye by

Eye Conditions (not) in ABC Order

Dry eye

48% of Americans over age 18 complain of dry eyes.  Caused by environment, genetics, health conditions, eye procedures, medications.

There are 2 reasons for dry eye:

  1. Inflammation blocks the free flow of fluid through the eye.
  2. Tear duct insufficiency – the ducts and glands don’t produce adequate moisture for the eye (can be solved by a tear duct stent)

If a medication dries up another part of your body, then it has the potential to dry out your eyes (antihistamines, medications for overactive bladder) – these medications can also lead to constipation. Many of the common diseases that many Americans deal with can cause dry eye – hypertension (high blood pressure), diabetes, obesity.

They light from electronic devices tricks your eyes into not blinking as often, therefore your eyes can dry out more easily (blinking is your eyes’ remoisturizing process).  The solution is to give your eyes long breaks from electronic light , especially late at night before sleeping.

Air conditions in hotels can make your eyes feel dry because they work to remove excess humidity from the air.

Hormones, whether in pregnancy, menopause, or during the use of prescription birth control products, can cause changes in the moisture content of your eyes.

The Solution: eye drops (either OTC or Rx)

Presbyopia

It means “old or elderly vision”.
Presby = elders
Presbyterian church = the church’s decision-maker was a group of people called Elders

This seems to happen somewhere around age 40.  The lens of your eye loses some of its flexibility.  The lens has to be really curved to see up close, and then flattens out a bit to see far away.  So, if the flexibility decreases, it means it can’t curve up enough to clearly see things up close.

The solution: wear reading glasses.

Stye

It’s an infected oil duct or hair follicle.  Looks like a zit.  **DO NOT TRY TO POP A STYE LIKE A ZIT!!**  They will usually clear out on their own in 6-7 days.  Not too troublesome other than being sore, swollen, and not pleasant to look at.

The Solution: warm compress for 15-20 min, then take a shower or wash your face, then leave it alone!  Can use drops or an ointment to help lubricate the eye.  Worst cases will require antibiotic drops or ointment from the doctor.

Corneal dystrophy

A genetic condition that causes the accumulation of protein material build up in the layers of the cornea (recap: cornea = the very front layer of your eye that starts to focus the light into the eye).  If this fluid gets cloudy with junk, then your vision gets blurry. No other symptoms really except worsening vision.  A surgical procedure can be used to clear out the cloudy liquid, but no cure.

This can lead to corneal erosion (where the layers of the cornea begin to separate = painful). Corneal erosion has to be corrected by surgery.  Erosion can also be a result of eye injury – either instant trauma or more gradual like an unhealed corneal abrasion (which can lead to ulceration and eventually erosion).

Take care of your eyes and treat them nicely!

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Eye Vitamins 2 [Show Notes]

 in Podcasts  tagged alcohol / anemia / antioxidants / episode / eyes / fatty acids / folic acid / Thiamine / Vitamins by

Remember: if a vitamin is good for one place in your body, it’s probably good for a lot of places in your body.  It’s a marketing ploy to call them eye vitamins.

Eye Vitamins

  1. Thiamine (B-1): thiamine is used heavily in your liver, to help metabolize alcohol.  Most well-known deficiency in alcoholics.  Thiamine also helps nerves produce several neurotransmitters, as well as protects your nerves from inflammatory chemicals (the chemicals in your body that trigger swelling and pain).  You don’t want inflammation in your optical nerves.  You also don’t want the signals from your eyes to your brain and back to be slow.
  2. Folic acid:  important for pregnancy women and fetal development, deficiency can cause a type of anemia.  It’s main job is to help make accurate copies of the DNA and RNA when cells are dividing and multiplying.  You don’t want typos in your DNA!  This is important for your eyes because the cells of your eyes is because they are some of the fastest reproducing and dividing cells in your body.
  3. Omega-3 Fatty acids:  Beneficial for heart health, found in oils.  Oils in your body are lubricating.  Omega-3 fatty acids are building blocks for the cholesterol that is build into cell membranes that keep the fluid and slippery. The body also uses O3FA to produce the natural lubrication in your eye.
  4. N-Acetylcystine (NAC): an amino acid (building block of protein).  Glutathione – your body’s naturally produced antioxidant.  NAC is used when the cells build and store glutathione.  Glutathione focuses mainly on oxygen-based free radicals.
  5. Alpha Lipoid Acid (ALA): another antioxidant.  Found in sources of natural oils – seeds and nuts.
  6. Lutein and Zeaxanthin: 2 nutrients that are found in red, orange, and yellow fruits and vegetables (and that actually cause them to be those colors in the first place).  Their main goal in your eyes are to prevent blue light damage.  Blue light is a short wavelength with a higher speed and energy than the lower colors of light.  This energetic light can damage cells in your eyes, so the orange nutrients blocks this energetic waves so you can still see the blue colors, but it’s more chill and doesn’t cause damage to the retina.  These nutrients concentrate in the macula.

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Eye Vitamins 1 [Show Notes]

 in Podcasts  tagged episode / eyes / Iron / minerals / Vitamin A / Vitamin C / Vitamine / Vitamins / zinc by

*Disclaimer: most vitamins and minerals are good for ALL of your body.

Eye Vitamins

  1. Vitamin C: helps make collagen, allows iron to be absorbed, and acts as a neurotransmitter co-factor (helps in the process of creating and sending messages).
  2. Vitamin E: antioxidant, it traps up free radicals so they don’t damage cells in important organs.
  3. Beta-Carotene: a pre-cursor to Vitamin A (this happens in your liver). Vitamin A works with proteins in your eyes to create light-sensitive molecules to aid in color vision and seeing in dim light.
  4. Zinc: helps Vitamin A know where it’s needed in the body and helps it get there.
  5. Selenium: helps the body absorb Vitamin E.
  6. Calcium: vital for muscle and nerve conduction (think electricity).
No lone rangers here!
Many foods are fortified in modern countries and have vitamins added to them that may not be naturally occurring in the raw ingredients.  If you’re eating a well balanced diet and still deficient in something, take a supplement of the thing you’re deficient in, not a whole multi-vitamin.  If you’re getting regular check-ups with your doctor, they should be testing for many things, including many vitamin levels, to check for deficiencies.
Being “tired” isn’t always fixed by taking vitamins.

Bonus

Depending on what nutrient is missing to cause anemia, the red blood cells will have a certain appearance.

Some vitamins are fat soluble. They hang out in your adipose tissue, and can cause problems if you get them in too large amounts.

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Eye Anatomy [Show Notes]

 in Podcasts  tagged anatomy / camera / color / episode / eyes / lens / light / vision by

Eyes

Your eyes are more complex than any camera on the planet!

Cornea:  a concave lens on the front of your eye that focuses light
Iris:  the colored part, a diaphragm that controls how much light comes in (the pupil is the hole the light enters = equivalent to the aperture of a camera)
Lens:  the “focuser”, uses a process called accommodation to focus near to far and make the image as sharp and clear as possible
Retina:  the sensor, and sends signals to the brain to translate light into an images

The retina has 2 types of sensors:

  • Rods – detect light intensity
  • Cones – color differentiation

Two special areas of the retina:

  • Macula – right in the middle of the retina, they place that detects the most detail (that’s why the center of your vision field is a clearer picture than the periphery)
  • Fovea – the center of the macula, it contains cones (color sensors) only to aid in the translation of very fine details

Support structures

  • Extra-ocular muscles – allows your eyes to move around in their holes
  • There are chambers of fluid that are between each structure of the eye, and that fluid helps hold nutrients that feed those parts, and remove waste
  • Choroid:  the layer that holds all the blood vessels that feed the eyes
  • Sclera:  the whites of your eyes, an outer coating that hold everything inside
  • Conjuntiva:  the mucus membrane that attaches the sclera to the eyelids; produces liquid for lubrication and trapping invaders

PSA

Please don’t vigorously rub or scratch your eyes, you could hurt them!

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Now You See It [Show Notes]

 in Brain / Podcasts  tagged blindness / brain / eyes / hallucinations / occipital lobe / seizures by

Occipital Lobe Review

A brain lesion is a place in the brain that doesn’t fire when it should or fires sporadically when it shouldn’t.  Occipital lobe lesions can lead to hallucinations that range from amorphous to extremely detailed.

Field blindness: a lesion causes the occipital lobe to not translate the information from one or more spots of the visual map (your whole view).  Blind spots (round) or visual cuts (lines).

Photosensitivity seizures: seizures triggered by visual overstimulation.  Even though stereotypical in different forms of entertainment, these only accounts for about 10% of seizure triggers.  Seizures triggered by visual stimulation can range from mild to severe.

Certain types of blindness can be rooted in translation problems in the brain, rather than reception problems in the eyeball.

Lesions in the occipital-temporal-parietal junction:

  • Color agnosia: can see the colors but can’t recall the names; simplified colors (all greens appear to be the same green)
  • Movement agnosia: think weeping angels (things only move to a new position when you’re not looking at it) or moving items appear blurry
  • Agraphia: unable to communicate in writin

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Eyes In The Back of Your Head [Show Notes]

 in Brain / Podcasts  tagged dorsal / eyes / mom skills / occipital lobe / ventral by

Occipital Lobe Basics

The occipital lobe sits in the back of your head, it directly connects to your eyes.

2 Streams of messages that your eyes send to your occipital lobe.

  1. Ventral stream – translates “what”
  2. Dorsal stream – translates “where” and “how”

It sends translated information to the necessary part of the brain to respond or react to what you saw.  This is how hand-eye coordination works (not just for athletes).  And, since so much of the information we receive is visual means that the occipital lobe doesn’t do much else.

**The following is complete speculation based on my experiences as a Mom.**

Mom’s get accused of having eyes in the back of their head – but my guess is that mom’s gain a keener sense of spacial awareness regarding the things that are happening around you.  Also, mom’s hearing become much more attuned to specific sounds (aka knowing their baby’s voice from other baby voices) to the point of knowing the difference between the sound of crayons coloring on paper versus crayons coloring on a wall!

If it hasn’t been obvious, let me just say that no part of the brain acts and reacts all by itself.  Many of the complex activities we complete as humans involve many areas of the brain simultaneously or sequentially.

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