This eye condition usually won’t threaten your vision or require treatment. But it can sometimes signal a more serious, sight-threatening problem. So it’s best to be checked by an ophthalmologist (a specialist who treats eyes) right away.
How can you tell that your vitreous may have detached? By a sudden increase in floaters — those small, typically harmless shapes that drift across your field of vision as you move your eyes.
“Vitreous detachments are pretty common,” says professor of ophthalmology at Cleveland Clinic Lerner College of Medicine Rishi P. Singh, MD. “When you see these new floaters, it’s best to have them evaluated and, specifically, to have a dilated eye examination performed by an ophthalmologist.”
Amblyopia is an example of how the body suppresses or gets rid of activity that is not used. Amblyopia “ex anopsia” is the leading cause of poor vision in children, and the most common reason is a “lazy eye”. If the eyes do not work together for binocular vision, the weaker of the two eyes has suppressed development and eventually eyesight is lost.
I have a friend who was going in the pilot training, it was found to lack good depth perception, and could not proceed. He now complains occasionally of double vision, and may be an example of the suppressed eye with lack of binocular vision.
I have a muscle in balance which causes a rotation of my eye so that it’s hard to fuse on a horizontal linear object. I was probably able to fuse when I was younger and avoid this loss of vision in the weaker eye.
So be on the alert for a squint, or wandering eye in children. Get them in early for treatment, the earlier the better, and it must take place before age 5 to 7.
The patient is awake as a laser cuts her cataract into six pieces. Then, she heads into the operating room. When she wakes up, her cataracts and nearsightedness are gone.
Macular degeneration is a leading cause of visual impairment in people over 65 and can lead to blindness. One in three people will eventually suffer some degree of macular degeneration, which is caused by abnormal blood vessels under the retina, the light-sensitive part of the eye. We treat both the more common “dry” as well as the more dangerous “wet” forms of macular degeneration. While there is currently no cure for this disease, we offer the latest treatments to reduce the risk of vision loss and blindness. These include anti-VEGF drugs—which attack proteins that create the abnormal blood vessels that cause macular degeneration—and photodynamic therapy, in which patients ingest medication that is then activated with a laser.
This high quality video shows several aspects of macular degeneration. It discusses treatments with stem cells that are in the research phase; in the future there may be replacements for the abnormal support cells, the vascular cells and pigmented epithelium, that are diseased in macular degeneration.
Current treatment centers on control of abnormal blood vessels either by photo active laser, laser coagulation, or anti-VEGF. Macular degeneration has two forms, wet and dry. The wet macular degeneration has accumulations, or Drusen, under the epithelium. There are also machines to check the thickness of the macula, which is an aid in diagnosis.
The main symptom of macular degeneration or loss of vision especially in The center of the visual field, which is essential for reading. As I mentioned in my podcast, I made a posting on macular degeneration that includes an amsler grid. Some early symptoms of macular degeneration include waviness of the lines of this grid. Certainly if you have any visual distortion or loss you should see an ophthalmologist.
If your medical plan permits it, I feel but a regular check buy an ophthalmologist approximately every 6 to 12 months, is very useful. My own ophthalmologist checks my retinal thickness, optic nerve, pressure and peripheral Field ( to pick up glaucoma) as well as my vision on each visit.
From tele-consults in the ED to on-site fundus imaging at Primary Care offices, New York Eye and Ear Infirmary of Mount Sinai (NYEE) is adapting to the rapidly changing healthcare environment with innovative new applications and technologies and making them a permanent part of our patient service. These approaches are not only valuable social distancing tools, to reduce coronavirus exposure of physicians, staff, and patients, but they also allow greater access to care and quicker and more effective triage of patients.
For more information about NYEE, visit www.nyee.edu
Macular Degeneration is the most common cause of blindness in the western world.as you get older, it becomes increasingly common, and almost 20% of people older than 85 years have this disease.
It comes in 2 types, dry and wet. Mostly it starts as the milder dry type, which develops slowly and has no definite treatment. The dry type can develop into the more rapidly progressive wet variety, however, and is important to notice and report to your ophthalmologist.
The MACULA is the center of the visual field, and has by far the most photoreceptors. It yields the sharpest vision, and is essential for reading, and even recognizing faces.
LOSS OF VISION is the commonest symptom, but is hard to notice in a slowly developing condition. A neurologist friend of mine alerted me to the AMSLER GRID, which helps in picking up the subtle distortions of this sneaky problem.
Checking your vision every few days-it takes only a few seconds- is a good idea as you age. You might be healthy in every other way, but if you are blind, the quality of life in your final years will suffer. The mechanics of the wavy lines generated by macular degeneration are deposits beneath the macula, raising it up.
The deposits are fatty in the case of the dry, and fluid in the case of the wet macular degeneration; and fluid from the abnormal blood vessels in the wet MD can collect very rapidly indeed.
Even though the cause of MD is unknown, prevention is by the same old healthy habits tiresomely mentioned in all my other postings: DIET and EXERCISE. I’m sure that good sleep doesn’t hurt either, No cigarette smoking of course, and there are some vitamins and minerals mentioned, such as lutein, zeaxanthin, zinc, and copper.
The wet MD does have a treatment to slow down the disease. Since blood vessel growth is important in causation, antibodies to VEGF, vascular endothelial growth factor, are injected into the macular area. I’m sure that more help is on the way. Some treatments to support the protective pigmented layer of the retina are currently in progress.
–DR. C
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