People say that the eyes are the windows to the soul yet they are actually a window to your health. Many people are unaware how many health issues can be detected or diagnosed in an eye exam.

The eye has two unique properties. The first is that the tissue on the back of the eye, the retina, is the only place in the body where blood vessels can be seen without any obstruction of other tissue. By examining the appearance of these blood vessels, your optometrist can see damage from systemic disease happening to the eye and if it is happening to the eye then it is also happening to the blood vessels throughout the body.

One out of 10 adults over the age of 20 has been diagnosed with diabetes. Many adults can suffer from the effects of sugar fluctuations on their eye health. Diabetic eye disease is the leading cause of blindness in adults over 20 years old in the United States.

The three most common effects of diabetes on the eye are diabetic retinopathy, cataracts and glaucoma. Diabetic retinopathy occurs when the blood vessels in the back of the eye swell and leak fluid. This excess fluid causes vision loss. Cataracts (a clouding of the lens) can have an earlier onset in patients with diabetes. Glaucoma (an increase in the fluid pressure of the eye) can lead to optic nerve damage and consequently permanent vision loss. Diabetics are twice as likely to develop glaucoma as non-diabetics.

Brookside Optometric Group recently acquired a new scanning device to increase the effectiveness of our care for our patients. The Oculus Pentacam is an amazing device that can measure the parameters of every anatomical structure in the eye up to the retina. Combining this device with our Optical Coherence Tomagrapher (OCT)—which analyzes the individual cellular levels of the retina—we now have the ability to determine the root cause of all visual problems that are anatomically linked within the eye.

According to the CDC, 1 in 3 adults have high blood pressure in the United States.¹ With this systemic disease, there are huge consequences for our bodies, including the eyes.

Blood pressure is the force of blood against your artery walls as it circulates through your body as defined by the CDC.¹ Although our body’s blood pressure naturally rises and falls throughout the day, long term elevated blood pressure can cause damage to the artery walls. This long term damage to arteries can lead to stroke, heart attack or other vasculopathic disorders. Listed below are the guidelines for blood pressure by the American Heart Association.

October is no longer just an orange and black month in the spirit of Halloween. October is also a pink month—October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month. October is the month when major campaigns to promote early detection of breast cancer with screening mammograms and monthly self-breast exams and fundraising campaigns to fund breast cancer research occur.

If you are a parent like me and have ever wondered “when should I first take my child to see the optometrist”, you are probably not alone. Many parents decide to take their children to the eye doctor for their first eye exam when they fail a vision school screening or the vision screening at the pediatrician’s office. However, there are great benefits to bringing your child in for a comprehensive optometric examination long before the presentation of a suspected or apparent vision issue.

Now, more than ever before, there are greater numbers of children with special needs and challenges in the classroom. Many of these children, particularly those with dyslexia, attention deficit disorder (ADD) and high functioning autism (Asperger’s), have average and often above-average intelligence. But regardless of their IQs, they often struggle in school because their brains process information differently than others. Given that more than 25% of the brain is devoted to processing vision, it is not surprising that visual processing issues are often among the processing differences of the special needs child. Failing to address these visual processing issues makes the child’s learning experience more difficult than it needs to be. Sometimes it may be a combination of both visual processing and visual function (seeing, focusing, tracking, eye coordination) that is contributing to your child’s difficulty. The optometrist can help to identify what is the appropriate intervention, including treatment, therapy, and/or coordination of care with other professionals such as speech and language therapists, reading specialists and programs, neuropsychologists, behavioral therapists, specialized tutors and others.

It’s hard to believe that here, in the peak of summer, some school districts will be resuming classes in July, and the rest will go back to school in August. For many students, there may be almost as much demand on their vision when they are off during the summer. With summer preparation requirements for AP and Honors Classes, possibly increased periods of intense video-gaming, or even more extreme summer exposure to sun, wind, and sports—a student’s eyes get a work-out all year long!

It is hard to believe that getting our kids ready to go back to school is something we have to think about in mid-July. However, as school calendars have changed, parents have to plan earlier and earlier for the new school year.

There has been lots of speculation about the eyes being a source of COVID-19 infection. Some of this has come from a report by a virologist news reporter who claimed to have contracted the disease from his eyes on a plane flight. However, upon repeated testing the reporter never even had COVID-19!

On July 30, 2020 Dr. Fauci mentioned in a press conference the possibility of using eye shields to protect against COVID-19. Dr. Fauci said, "You have mucosa in the nose, mucosa in the mouth, but you also have mucosa in the eye," he continued. "Theoretically, you should protect all the mucosal surfaces. So, if you have goggles or an eye shield you should use it." He noted that goggles and eye or face shields are "not universally recommended" at this time, "but if you really want to be complete, you should probably use it if you can."

Transition technology has reached contact lenses! Bright light and transitions from dark to light can be stressful on your eyes. Acuvue Oasys Transition Contact Lenses quickly adapt to changing light, providing comfortable vision in a wide range of lighting conditions.

Brookside Optometric Group doctors and partners share their most meaningful and memorable patient stories from the year!

Keratoconus is an eye condition whereby the corneas (the central clear part of the front surface of the eye) become curved in an irregular manner. The first signs of this syndrome usually can be detected around the age of puberty and the progression of this curving effect to the cornea keeps advancing into the patient’s 30’s.

The Third Week of August marks the 5th Annual observance of Contact Lens Health Week. Since Soft Contact Lenses were first invented in 1961, and introduced to the USA by Bausch and Lomb in 1971, the “uniqueness” of the experience has faded a bit and people have often become somewhat lax in their care of these medical devices we are inserting into our bodies. Summer is the perfect time to review some of the practical steps we can take to ensure a safe and comfortable relationship with your contact lenses.

Thanks for once again voting us “Best of San Joaquin” in 2018, for the 8th year in a row! We appreciate your ongoing support as Best Optometrist, and we are honored to have you all as our patients!

Part I of this blog introduced vocabulary for the various types and severities of hereditary color deficiencies. Part II explains how, for the first time ever, we can help color deficient patients distinguish colors. Disclaimer: lots of doctor terminology ahead (but there’s no other way to explain it). If you only want to know how you can try out the extraordinary new color vision lens called EnChroma, available exclusively at Brookside Optometric Group, skip to the last 2 paragraphs below.

I am excited to try a newly released photochromatic lens. The SunSync Drive XT is a photochromatic lens that responds to ultraviolet light and also to visible light. The big advantage to responding to visible light is that it will get dark in the car while traditional photochromatic lenses will not. Thus to simplify, the brighter it is, the darker it will get.

Want to track your daily activity and give back to those in need simply by wearing your glasses? Now you can do both with Level smart glasses.

Designed in the U.S. and handcrafted in Italy, the smart glasses are a perfect mix of style and function. Built-in activity-tracking technology logs your daily activity, step count, calories burned, and more. View your activity throughout the day on your phone—the glasses sync wirelessly with the Level mobile app, and if you ever misplace your glasses, you can easily track them down using the app.

People are very protective of their eyes. I notice this all the time in doing an eye exam in that people are tentative when you bring objects close to them. So it boggles my mind that people are so nonchalant when it comes to eye safety when they are outside of my office.

February is designated as National Low Vision Awareness Month. Low vision is the term used to describe the visual performance of eyes impacted by any condition that renders a person’s visual acuity to 20/70 or poorer in the better-seeing eye and cannot be corrected or improved with regular eyeglasses. Most people know this term as being “legally blind”.