You’ve been diagnosed with a cataract and you’ve been told you should have cataract surgery. The surgeon is also telling you that you should consider paying out-of-pocket for certain features.

Where did this come from? Why should you have to pay out-of-pocket for cataract surgery? Shouldn’t your health insurance just cover it?

In trying to answer these questions, you will first need a little history of both cataract and refractive surgery, which corrects errors of refraction such as nearsightedness, farsightedness, and astigmatism.

Radial keratotomy (RK) was the first widely used refractive surgery for nearsightedness. It was invented in 1974 by Russian ophthalmologist Svyatoslav Fyodorov, and it was the primary refractive procedure done until the mid-1990s. Then it was surpassed by the laser procedure called PRK and then, eventually, LASIK; they are still the predominately pure refractive surgeries done today.

Cataract surgery has its origins all the way back to at least 800 BC in a procedure called couching. In this procedure, the cataract was pushed into the back of the eye with a sharp instrument so the person could […]

Your Eyes Are A Precious Gift–Protect Them During The Holidays

“I want an official Red Ryder, carbine action, two-hundred shot range model air rifle!”

“No, you'll shoot your eye out.”

These lines from “A Christmas Story” form one of the most memorable Christmas movie quotes ever. Funny in the movie, but the holiday season does present a real eye injury threat.

For those who celebrate Christmas, that risk begins even before the actual day.

Some of the most frequent holiday-related eye injuries come from the Christmas tree itself.

Holiday eye safety begins with the acquisition of the tree. If you are cutting down your own tree, please wear eye protection when doing the cutting–especially if you are going to be using a mechanical saw, such as a chain saw or sawzall. You need to also be careful of your eyes when loading a tree on top of the car. It is easy to get poked in the eye when heaving the tree up over your head.

Once back at home, take care to make sure no one else is standing […]

A quick explanation and background of a progressive addition lens (or PAL) is necessary in order to understand the importance of choosing the proper lens for your needs.

A progressive lens gives people an array of prescriptions – placed in the proper positions throughout the lens – to best imitate normal vision. Imagine having the precise correction needed to see a television screen more than 15 feet from you, while reading this article on your desktop computer, and then looking down at your keyboard in order to start entering the address to your favorite website. This, in a nutshell, is exactly what the progressive lens is ideally capable of accomplishing with one pair of glasses.

Having the least amount of peripheral distortion, and one of the wider ranges in both distance power, astigmatism, prism, and add power availability, we find this lens to be very versatile. The most important thing to you is that this product feels very natural in front of your eye. For first-time progressive lens wearers, there is a stigma that it takes a […]

What's one of the most common questions people ask when a baby is born? "WHAT COLOR ARE HIS EYES?” is usually right up there.

What makes the color of our eyes appear as they do? What role do genetics play? What if you don’t like your eye color–can you change it? Are there any medications that can change eye color? Get ready to explore the science behind eye color by starting at the beginning…….

Baby’s eye color can change. A baby can start out with blue eyes, for example, that change to brown as she ages. It’s all dependent on a brown pigment called melanin which develops as a child grows. The more melanin present, the darker the eye color. Brown eyes have the most pigment saturation, green/hazel eyes have less melanin, and blue eyes have the least pigment. The color of eyes is dependent upon genetics. Genetics are complicated, but generally speaking brown trumps blue if there is a brown-eyed parent. This is because darker […]

Now that you have picked up your new pair of prescription eyeglasses, your focus becomes taking care of them. This is a task many disregard, but it is absolutely imperative that you make sure you are following a couple simple steps to keep the quality of your vision with your new spectacles.

We are all guilty of using a garment when in a rush to wipe away a pesky smudge on our glasses. This act is unfortunately about the worst thing you can do for your lenses.

No matter how clean your clothes are, dust particles and even small bits of sand and debris cling to them. Since eyeglass lenses are not made of diamonds, these tiny little particles can do tremendous amounts of damage to your new lenses. The smallest little crumb can grind a scratch directly in your line of vision, which in turn can render your glasses almost useless.

Most of us know what it feels like trying to concentrate on the world in front of you when there is a little scratch distorting and distracting […]

Diabetic retinopathy is an eye condition that can affect the retina of people who have diabetes.

The retina is the light-sensitive tissue that lines the back of the eye, and it detects light that is then processed as an image by the brain. Chronically high blood sugar or large fluctuations in blood sugar can damage the blood vessels in the retina. This can result in bleeding in the retina or leakage of fluid.

Diabetic retinopathy can be divided into non-proliferative or proliferative diabetic retinopathy.

Non-proliferative diabetic retinopathy:  In the early stage of the disease, there is weakening of the blood vessels in the retina that causes out-pouching called microaneurysms. These microaneurysms can leak fluid into the retina. There can also be yellow deposits called hard exudates present in the retina from leaky vessels.

Diabetic macula edema is when the fluid leaks into the region of the retina called the macula. The macula is important for the sharp central vision needed for reading and driving. The accumulation of fluid in the macula causes blurry vision.

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