A lot of people haven’t yet discovered how great it is to use contacts. They can be very easy to use and are very safe for your eyes. A lot of people choose to switch back and forth between glasses and contacts and many people use lenses alone. If you areready to try contact lenses, you have arrived to the right place. 

Four-Eyed No More 

There used to be a stigma attached with people who wore glasses. Nowadays most glasses are stylish so can be a fashion statement but that doesn’t change the fact that there may be times (perhaps all the time) when you’d rather not wear glasses. In the past, contact lenses weren’t often worn by people unless they were wealthy. Contact lenses today are more affordable than glasses instead of more hefty! And, unlike glasses, contact lenses don’t have to change your look if you don’t want them to but they can change your look if you do want them to by allowing you to change the color of your eyes. 

Have you always wanted to have blue eyes? Do you wish to enhance your appearance by choosing a lens that has a piercing color? Currently it is possible to acquire them much easier. You can even buy the contact lenses online and save money while getting convenient delivery. 

Contact lenses are available in many different varieties and today they’re easier to care for than ever. Contacts solutions are perfect to clean your lenses after you’ve taken them out for the day and some of today’s lenses can even be safely left in while you sleep.There are varieties which are dailies, monthlies, or extended wear contact lenses for a longer term as well. 

If you’ve never worn contacts before, you’ll want to see your optometrist for a prescription and a contact lens fitting. If you have a recent prescription, you can order your contact lenses on the internet and have them sent directly to you; often at a fraction of the price of retail lens options. 

Contact Lenses: Options

There are a lot of lens options such as: bifocal lenses, colored lenses, custom lenses, disposables, extended wear, monovision, toric, and others so it’s a good idea to look at all your options to ensure you choose what will best suit your eyes and your desires.

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Refractive eye surgery is very effective in rectifying visual refractive errors and decreasing the dependency on glasses and contacts. It has been proven successful in reducing myopia (nearsightness), astigmatism (elongated corneas), hyperopia (farsightedness) and many other problems caused by refractive errors.

The medicine comprises four types of refractive eye surgery procedures: corneal incision procedures; flap and photoablation procedures; implants and thermal procedures. Nowadays the modern technology allows the doctors to use the laser to reshape the cornea.

During a flap procedure, the surgeon cuts a tiny flap in the cornea to reshape the tissue underneath and correct the refractive error.

Lasik (Laser Assisted In-Situ Keratomileusis) is very popular in the field of refractive surgery and can correct astigmatism, hyperopia and myopia. At first the surgeon uses a IntraLase or a microkeratome to move a flap out of the stroma. Next, he uses an excimer laser to remove excess corneal tissue and only after that he replaces the flap.

The best candidates for Lasik are the people with flat or thin corneas. A small trephine blade cuts into the epithelium while a mild alcohol solution will smoothen its edges. Excess corneal tissue is removed with an excimer laser and in the end the flap is replaced.

Just like LASEK, the Epi-LASIK cuts the epithelium but epikeratome is used as a replacement for alcohol and blade.

The second stage in flap procedures is photoablation because it removes excess corneal tissue with ultraviolet radiation. The original laser eye surgery procedure was PRK (photorefractive keratectomy).

This intervention used local aesthetic eye drops to numb the eye followed by the reshaping of the cornea. The excimer laser is an ultraviolet beam of light controlled by the computer that won´t cause any damage to the tissue around the eyes.

Arcuate keratotomy and radial keratotomy are two corneal incision procedures that alter the surface of the cornea to correct refractive errors. Radial keratotomy (RK) makes a few spoke-shaped incisions in the cornea with a diamond knife and by doing that it can treat myopia. Arcuate keratotomy is pretty much the same except that the diamond knife cuts parallel incisions to the edge of the cornea.

Farsightedness or temporarily hyperopic refractive errors can be corrected with heat thanks to thermal procedures. During the thermal keratoplasty procedure, the surgeon puts a ring of 8 or 16 small burns around the pupil. The heat causes contractions and makes the cornea steeper.

Thermal keratoplasty comprises Laser Thermal Keratoplasty (LTK) with holmium laser and Conductive Keratoplasty (CK) with high-frequency electric probes.

Last but not least, we have the implants. Thanks to implantable contact lenses (ICL) inserted in the cornea through small incisions, many patients suffering from astigmatism, hyperopia and myopia were cured. ICL sit behind the cornea refocusing the light and offering a natural image.

Discover where to find the best los angeles eye surgery. Learn more about lasik eye surgery at my site.

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Glaucoma is one of the foremost reasons for blindness in the world today. This doesn’t have to be so, as it can be treated successfully if it is discovered early. There are a few ways to treat glaucoma and the most radical one is by surgery. This treatment is done after the other options have failed.

Glaucoma is a term that doctors have given to four eye diseases. What the four types of glaucoma have in common is how they destroy vision. Glaucoma occurs when the optic nerve becomes destroyed due to pressure or lack of blood supply. Doctors are not sure exactly why this happens in some people and not in others. The people at highest risk of glaucoma are black people, people over 40, and anyone with a history of the disease in their family. Doctors will first try to treat glaucoma with medications, but if this doesn’t work then a surgical procedure is the last option. There are two types of operations that can be performed to treat glaucoma; traditional and laser.

Both traditional and laser surgery can make a world of difference in treating glaucoma. Doctors will only turn to an operation as a last resort after every other treatment has failed to work. Sometimes a glaucoma operation can cause cataracts, but they are very treatable. Laser trabeculoplasty is an operation used for open angle glaucoma. This operation is safe and fast and requires almost no recuperation time. The laser is aimed at drainage channels in the eye; a tiny hole will be made to help the fluid drain out. Trabeculectomy is a traditional surgical operation. In this operation a tiny hole is made in the white part of the eye, to help in fluid drainage. Recovery time from this type of operation can be up to eight weeks. Drain implantation involves putting a microscopic plastic tube inside the eye to improve drainage and pressure. The last type of operation is cyclophotocoagulation. In this procedure a laser is used on the surface of the eye to try to disrupt the part of the eye that produces fluid. This procedure is the most dangerous and can cause a decrease in vision, which is why doctors use it as a last resort.

Glaucoma surgery is done as a last resort when all other treatments have failed to work. Any type of operation carries risks, but not having an operation that you need to repair glaucoma damage is even riskier to your eye health. Glaucoma can be treated if it is found early enough, and vision can be saved.

Technorati Tags: angle glaucoma, cataracts, surgery

If you are serious about the health of your eyes, then you should make sure that you see your optical doctor on a regular basis. Making sure that you have regular optical exam, for example your yearly exam for glaucoma, will go a long way towards insuring that you keep your vision. Open angle glaucoma affects more than 80 percent of the people that contract glaucoma. Glaucoma is an eye disease that can be cured if found in the early stages.

There are other types of glaucoma but open angle is the one that affects the eyesight of most people. The sad fact is that there are more than 3 million Americans who have glaucoma but are not aware of it yet, based on statistical research. Glaucoma works by damaging the optic nerve through pressure in the eye or decreasing the blood supply to the optic nerve. If it is caught early enough by scheduling eye exams, then glaucoma can be arrested, and a person’s vision can be saved. However, any damage that glaucoma has caused up to that point is not fixable. The people who are most at risk of contracting glaucoma are black people, people over 40, or anyone that has a history of glaucoma in their family.

Most people who contract glaucoma discover that they have open angle glaucoma. This type is the most common and occurs in over 80 percent of all glaucoma cases. Glaucoma destroys a person’s vision by affecting the optic nerve, by putting pressure on and or stopping the blood supply to it. Whatever damage the glaucoma causes is permanent, yet if caught early, then it is very treatable. Many people do not realize that they have glaucoma because the loss of vision happens so slowly; they cannot tell it is happening to them. The only way to make sure that you are safe from the ravages of glaucoma is to be diligent about your health of your optical system and seek attention for any eye problems. Make sure that you have your yearly eye examination and you can perhaps save your vision.

Finding out that you have contracted an eye disease is very difficult to deal with. Open angle glaucoma affects over 80 percent of the people that contract glaucoma. The good news is that it is a treatable disease. If people make sure that they have regular exams with their optical doctor, then they will be safe from the damages of this disease.

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Narrow angle glaucoma, which is also called closed angle glaucoma, is one of the rare forms of this disease. Normally, glaucoma is not noticeable by the person who has contracted it, but with narrow angle this is not the case. The pressure in the eye generally increases suddenly and this causes excruciating pain, which results in an emergency situation.

Glaucoma is a term given to a group of different eye diseases that affect many people in the world today. Glaucoma is the number one cause of blindness in the world and narrow angle is the rarest type. The only good part about contracting it is that it is hard to ignore. Normally, glaucoma is not realized by the patient because there are no symptoms. This is bad because if it is not diagnosed by a doctor it can cause a lot of damage and eventually blindness. However, narrow angle comes on suddenly and causes intense pain. However, this type of glaucoma is a serious condition and if not treated immediately, it has the possibility of causing blindness in three to five days. Most of the time the symptoms are not able to be ignored because there are so painful, so those afflicted will seek treatment.

The symptoms of narrow angle glaucoma are very severe and hard to ignore. These symptoms include pain and inflammation, pressure, non reactive pupil dilation, cloudy corneas, blurred visual acuity, extreme sensitivity to light, seeing halos around lights and vomiting. There are a few different things that can cause this type of glaucoma. Some of them could be a problem with the structure of the eyes, certain medications, damage to the eyes, and damage due to diabetes. Obviously, anybody who has these extreme symptoms would realize the need to seek medical attention, so most of the time this type of glaucoma is treated before it causes blindness. The treatment for this type of glaucoma is called a laser iridotomy. A laser is used to create a small hole in the iris which helps restore the flow of fluid to the front of the eye. This relieves the pressure and saves eyesight.

Narrow angle glaucoma is one of the rare forms of glaucoma, but is a quick acting eye disease. It can destroy vision in five days or less if not treated. The only good news is that the symptoms that come with it are so hard to ignore that anyone would seek treatment in time to save their sight.

Technorati Tags: eye disease, eye problems, narrow angle glaucoma

There is no doubt that having lasik eye surgery in California can be an expensive procedure given the high cost of living within the state. However, this is more often than not offset by the equally high quality of service provided by the different eye centers. Many of them are accredited and possess excellent track records. These are sufficient reasons for turning to them for eye surgery. As such, many individuals have considered traveling interstate just to benefit from their medical services despite the additional cost that this might lead to.

There is an increasing number of eye surgeons who have started practising in California over the past few years. The existing clinics have already spared no expenses in hiring top surgeons from around the world to work with them. Some of the clinics that have produced great results and reputable staff include the Laser Eye Center and Saddelback Eye Center. Both have industry leading eye surgeons forming part of their staff. This translates to incurring higher medical expenses when deciding to have the eye surgeries carried out at the clinics.

However, if one is able to receive better results from the surgeries and quality medical care, the higher costs might be justifiable. These include both pre-treatment and after surgery care, which is not as common in other eye clinics. There are more eye clinics that only provide out patient surgery, so after surgery care is a luxury if one chooses such a route. Having your laser eye surgery in Orange County is different in the sense that many clinics offer the option of having your condition ascertained before being allowed to return home. There are patients who prefer to return home after surgery. But there are also those who wish to remain under the care of surgeons till full recovery.

There is an increasing number of people who flock to California for eye surgeries, as it can allow them to enjoy a better and healthier lifestyle. There is little contention in the many restrictions one faces when stricken with eye problems. They not only reduce your vision capabilities but also prevent you from enjoying many activities that can enrich your life. This includes outdoor sea sports, certain flying sports and even something like reading can be handicapped. It becomes worse from living in a state that is known for having weather conditions that are perfect for such activities. Lasik surgery will eliminate or reduce eye problems such as astigmatism and myopia, amongst many others.

There are risks involved with having lasik surgery and not just in California alone. It is not a procedure that is completely risk free, although only about one to five per cent of patients have been recorded to experience complications after surgery. These commonly include dry eyes, worsening visual capabilities and increased light sensitivity. Fortunately, with extra surgery, one can still eliminate the side effects. This maintains most patients' confidence in the effectiveness of lasik in treating eye conditions. If your wish is to not have to rely on eye wear in the future, then consider having lasik eye surgery to solve your problems and fulfill your needs.

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After the introduction of the corneal hard lens, the contact lens wearers were introduced to the “Holy Grail” of contact lenses: the RGP lenses. It was supposed to be a hard lenses made from a “breathable” plastic. However the amount of oxygen transmission was not very high and it soon became obvious that lenses with high powers and therefore thicker lenses did not benefit greatly from this new material.

In matter of fact the RGP lenses tended to attract protein deposits in the form of crystal molecules. So after wearing them for a few weeks the lenses became more and more irritating. In the beginning not many practitioners knew the source of the problem. Very often this thin layer of protein deposits from the tear film was not visible to the naked eye. On top of all this the rate of protein depositing depended on the individuals’ eyes. Some contact lens wearers did not experience any depositing while others would start to get irritated eyes within a week of wearing these new lenses.

A lot of time was then wasted by trying to refit the eye with a new RGP lens with different parameters. Slowly the optometrists started to realize that the RGP lenses needed a strict cleaning regime with special protein removing agents and wet overnight storage in contact lens containers to keep the lenses comfortable. For many previous PMMA lens wearers this was an extra burden and in many cases this strict cleaning was not adhered to. A result was that RGP contact lens wearers had to re-visit the optometrists frequently and the end result was frustration and in many cases a refit to PMMA contact lenses. 

I have seen many cases of successful PMMA wearers being converted to RGP with less than satisfactory results. I even know of optometrists who thought that because of this so-called breathable  lens material they now could increase the diameter of the contact lenses as to obtain better vision under low light conditions. The poor contact lens wearer now started to get problems because to remove the lenses from the cornea became harder. Because of the a-spherical nature of the corneal surface the contact lens would now fit much tighter on the eye with the larger diameter lens. Corneal oedema will result and the optical correction of the eye will alter.

A new replacement lens had to be made and more and more problems would result. A lot of confusion among the contact lenses practitioners existed during the years of the late seventies and early eighties. As a result a lot of  spectacle wearers were put off to switch to contact lenses. And even up to now there is still the concept that contact lenses might be difficult to get used to or might be irritating to the eyes.

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Toric contact lenses are contact lenses designed to correct astigmatism. These kind lenses are getting more and more popular and are an excellent alternative to spectacles or corrective eye surgery like Lasik.

The next logical development in contact lens would be a multifocal contact lens in the toric design. Especially nowadays with a considerable of contact lens wearers over 50years of age such a new concept would be very advantageous to the optical industry.

At present the only option for presbyopic toric contact lens wearers is the mono-vision adaptation where one of the contact lenses are fitted with a near prescription while the other eye is corrected with a contact lens for distance. It is a compromise situation as the trade-off is a reduced binocular stereoscopic perception.

This might cause problems judging distances which reduces for example the ability of estimating the speed of oncoming traffic. People wearing contact lenses in this fashion should be alert when overtaking on the motorway. Misjudging of distance or speed could have serious implications. However thousands of contact lens wearers have been fitted successfully contact lenses in this mono-vision way. A large percentage would have been suitable for multi focal lenses but a number of optometrists are applying the easiest fitting option.

Multi focal contact lenses are harder to fit and therefore time consuming. This is one of the reasons that the contact lens manufacturers are reluctant to introduce this toric multi focal contact lens concept because without adequate support from optometrists it will not be a profitable product. A disadvantage of Lasik surgery is that mono vision is the only way to correct presbyopia and there is the advantage for the contact lens industry to make sure it keeps its market share over corrective surgery .

Of course there are some contact lens manufacturers like Bausch & Lomb who are safeguarding their future by having an interest in both fields.Certainly that corrective eye surgery is also looking towards correcting presbyopia, but it might take some years in the future because altering the contours of a cornea is riskier and far more complex than producing a special contact lens.

With the onset of nano technology all these breakthroughs will eventually become reality. For now we are waiting for the first toric multifocal contact lens to enter the market and hopefully it will be produced as a cost effective disposable contact  lens.

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Degeneration of the macular is also called AMD, which stands for age related macular degeneration. This type of disease generally happens to people who are 65 years of age or older, and is a leading cause of blindness in people of this age group. Unfortunately, as the population ages more cases of this type of eye disease are being seen.

There are two types of macular degeneration (AMD). Dry, which is also known non-neo vascular and wet, also known as neo vascular. Wet refers to the growth of new blood vessels in the macula, where they are not suppose to be. The dry form is much more common and affects about 85 to 90% of all AMD patients. While both forms are not good to have, the wet form is much worse than the dry. Dry AMD is usually an early stage of the disease and can result from the macular tissues getting older and thinning out.

Dry AMD causes loss of vision in the central part of the eye. Sometimes dry AMD can progress on to wet AMD. Wet AMD is when blood vessels grow underneath the retina and then leak fluid and blood. This leakage will cause permanent damage to the cells of the retina. This damage is severe and causes the cells to die, which creates blind spots in the central vision. The growth of the blood vessels is the body’s misguided attempt to try and correct a problem that it knows is happening. Unfortunately, this just makes things even worse for the health of the eyes and is what causes AMD to really do its damage.

Macular degeneration is an eye disease that affects the aging, women, Caucasians, and people with a family history of AMD. This disease works slowly and painlessly and usually results in a profound vision loss. AMD causes shady areas in the central vision of the eyes, and it also causes fuzzy and distorted vision. Of the two forms of this disease, wet and dry, dry AMD is the more common form. This is good news considering the wet form of AMD is much more damaging to the eye. Doctors are not totally clear on what causes this disease. There has been talk and speculation of different genes and family history of the disease being the biggest factors. AMD affects the aging, white people, women, and people with a family history of this disease. Hopefully, doctors will have more answer about AMD as time goes on, especially considering that there is no known cure for this eye disease as of yet. Treatments can help and keep a quality of vision but it cannot totally cure this disease.

If you suspect you or a loved one has contracted macular degeneration, then you must see a vision doctor immediately. It is crucial to begin treatment for AMD as soon as you know that you have it. It will progress until more and more of the vision is destroyed. AMD has no known cure as of yet but treatments can go a long way to helping someone keep their sight for as long as possible.

Technorati Tags: eye exams, health issues, Macular Degeneration

Contact lenses became popular after the Second World War with the introduction of Perspex. This material called PMMA by the contact lenses industry became the first choice for producing contact lenses.

At first the lenses were made quite large in diameter, but soon contact lens practitioners realized that this caused the cornea to be starved of oxygen. The result was a corneal oedema which usually caused increased myopia. Also many patients started to complain about a halo effect around lights. Some of the halos consisted of a rainbow colors.

By ignoring these symptoms contact lens wearers would develop cell damage to the corneal surface and this made the eyes easy target for viral and bacterial infections. So the logical step was reducing the average diameter of the contact lenses to around 8 mm. Any smaller size was not practical because under low light conditions the pupils would become larger than the contact lenses and the lenses edge reflections started to interfere with the vision.

Another problem usually would be that the smaller contact lenses are more sensitive to the eyelids. This resulted in producing thinner and therefore lighter contact lenses.However these small contact lenses would shift more easily from the cornea to the sclera which is the white part of the eye. Because the sclera has a flatter curve the contact lenses tended difficult to be pushed back on the cornea. In some instances the contact lens wearers thought they had lost their lens only to be located deep under the eyelids by the optometrist.

In order to make it easier to locate the contact lenses the manufacturers started to produce tinted contact lenses. Through using dyes to make the tear flow under the contact lens more visible the optometrist got a better understanding of how the cornea received its oxygen. Because corneas do not possess blood vessels all the oxygen enters through the tear film into the cornea membrane.

Soon it became clear that a good movement of tear flow between the lenses and the corneas were essential to keep the cornea in good condition. A contact lenses fitted too tight would feel comfortable for the eyelids but would have an adverse effect on the health of the cornea. At the other hand a contact lens fitted too loose would move around too much and could easily fall out or constantly shift onto the sclera. So a fine balance was needed to obtain a perfect fitting contact lens. In this stage of contact lens development the fitting of lenses were more art than science and it took years of experience to fine tune these skills.

Technorati Tags: contact lens, contact lenses, eye vision