stye Archives | Intellexi Med

Eye Conditions 4 [Show Notes]

April 10, 2017 in Podcasts tagged corneal dystrophy / corneal erosion / dry eyes / electronics / episode / eyes / hormones / presbyopia / reading glasses / Sleep / stye by Cynthia H.

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:

Inflammation blocks the free flow of fluid through the eye.
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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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 1 [Show Notes]

March 20, 2017 in Podcasts tagged astigmatism / blepharitis / cataracts / double vision / episode / eye hygiene / eye lids / lasix / lazy eye / lens replacement / stye by Cynthia Hendrix

Eye Conditions in ABC order

Your eyes work together so that the line of focus for each eye cross, and that is your most in focus image. So as your eyes make tiny adjustments, you can focus on things close up or far away.

Amblyopia

If you have a lazy eye, the muscles don’t allow the eye to focus and coordinate with the strong eye. This can lead to double vision or blurry vision. I remember it because it sounds like “ambling” which can mean to meander or wander around. Versions of this can be caused by torticollis, where a baby’s head is tilted or twisted due to positioning in the womb. The eye can either compensate for the difference or it’ll just give up and let the dominant eye do all the work. Correction of this issue usually involves patching the strong eye and making the weak eye do all the work. The blurry or double vision can lead to headaches. Overuse and fatigue (like long days at work) can make it worse.

Astigmatism

An astigmatism no a stigmatism. It’s an irregularly-shaped cornea; think baseball vs football. A circular lens (baseball) focuses light to a single point. A football-shaped lens focuses light to a line, so that makes the vision blurry. This is why people with astigmatism will squint. Squinting is a way for your eyes to manipulate the amount of light coming in and alter the shape of the eye to clear up the image of what they’re looking at.

Lasix procedures can correct astigmatism – the laser does micro-damage to the eye and it heals more circular in the eye.

Blepharitis

Inflammation of eye lids. Can result in dry eye. It can affect the outside (eye lashes side) or the inside (lubrication gland size). This is NOT a stye. Caused by a chronic build-up of bacteria, skin flakes, dried eye lubrication. Some skin conditions can make a person more susceptible to blepharitis – Rosacea (overgrowth of skin bacteria), severe dermatitis, including psoriasis. It’s recommended to use really good eye hygiene before having a doctor intervene. Using warm compresses to keep dried skin and “eye crusties” soft and glands open so they don’t get clogged. Using clean cotton swabs or clothes instead of your hands to touch or wipe things out of your eyes, so you don’t transfer bacteria. Doctor’s can insert a catheter into the tear ducts to keep it open and less likely to keep it clogged. There’s not a cure to make it go away for good.

Cataracts

The lens of the eye gets cloudy due to proteins clumping up. People have described trying to see with cataracts like trying to look through wax paper. Risk of cataracts normally increases with age. The risk for cataracts can be increased even more by chronic diseases (diabetes, high blood pressure), poor health habits (obesity, smoking, alcohol use), long-term use of certain medications (steroids, hormone replacement therapy). The current treatment for cataracts is lens replacement. The old treatment would be just removing the proteins, but depending on a person’s longevity, they may get cataracts again in their lifetime.