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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

As we’ve kicked off this New Year feeling refreshed and looking forward to carrying out our many New Year’s resolutions (some being more realistic than others of course...), let’s add one more thing to that list: Seeing the best that you can in 2017.

January is National Glaucoma Awareness Month meaning there’s no better time to start the conversation about this often talked about condition. In this article, I will try to explain what exactly Glaucoma is while clearing up some common misconceptions along the way!

I hope we find all of you in good health and good spirits. November is National Diabetes Awareness Month. Looking back at the late 80’s, students were trained to interpret a case history to determine what disease entities we should look for based on a patient’s race and age. For example, it you were middle aged and of Hispanic or American Indian descent, we would be concerned with diabetes, if you were of African American descent, we would be concerned with hypertension and glaucoma and so on. While this is not funny, consider it a medical form of racial profiling but it was clinically significant. Case histories are still important but the thinking has changed.

Many patients come to our office at Brookside Optometric Group not only because they have blurry vision, but also because their eyes are often irritated, and even red. Sometimes the irritation and redness have been going on for so long that the patients think it is "normal", especially if they wear contact lenses. In actual fact, they may be suffering from dry eyes or Dry Eye Syndrome (DES).

DES is a disease of the tear film covering the surface of the eye. This condition results in ocular discomfort, blurry vison, and tear film instability that can damage the surface of the eye. This then leads to inflammation of the eye, producing red eyes, swelling, and sometimes even watery eyes. Eventually the corneal surface will be damaged, causing further pain, discomfort, and even blurred vision.

January is National Glaucoma Awareness Month. Glaucoma is a disease where the pressure in the eye rises and slowly kills off the optic nerve and leads to blindness. Here are just a few facts about Glaucoma:

• It is estimated that over 2.2 million Americans have glaucoma but only half of those know they have it.
• In the U.S., more than 120,000 are blind from glaucoma, accounting for 9% to 12% of all cases of blindness.
• Glaucoma is the second leading cause of blindness in the world, according to the World Health Organization.
• After cataracts, glaucoma is the leading cause of blindness among African Americans.
• Blindness from glaucoma is 6 to 8 times more common in African Americans than Caucasians.
• African Americans are 15 times more likely to be visually impaired from glaucoma than Caucasians.
• The most common form, open-angle glaucoma, accounts for 19% of all blindness among African Americans compared to 6% in Caucasians.
• Other high-risk groups include: people over 60, family members of those already diagnosed, diabetics, and people who are severely nearsighted.
• Estimates put the total number of suspected cases of glaucoma at over 60 million worldwide.

Sometimes the eye doctor is the only doctor people see with any regularity — especially some of us guys. Therefore it is comforting to know that there is a lot your eye doctor can tell you about your general health by examining your eyes. When you think about it, the back of your eye is the only place on your body that you can actually look at the blood vessels themselves. And the optic nerve is really a kind of cable extension from your brain. Hypertension and high cholesterol levels cause observable changes to your blood vessels.

Do you stare at the computer more than 4 hours a day? Do your eyes feel tired and strained by the middle or end of the work day? Do you regularly experience headaches by the end of your day or sooner? Does your neck and back ache as you tilt your chin and adjust your head to see the computer screen through your progressive glasses all day?  These concerns and more are all related to a condition known as computer vision syndrome, also known as digital eye strain. If this sounds like you or a loved one, don’t worry—you’re not alone. Digital eye strain affects more than 70 percent of the approximately 143 million Americans who work on a computer on a daily basis, according to the American Optometric Association (AOA).