Family History and Glaucoma Screening

You've seen them at the mall or at a health fair, the Glaucoma screening booths. The dreaded "air puff" to check your eye pressure to see if you might have Glaucoma. There are actually lots of different ways to screen for Glaucoma risk, and this is a very active area of research for eye doctors. What's the best way to screen for Glaucoma?

First, a couple of thoughts on what a screening test should do and not do. When you have a disease that is sneaky, like Glaucoma, and it doesn't have any outward symptoms to let you know it is there, sometimes it makes sense to have some kind of test that will let you know that you DO either have the disease or at a high risk to get it. Glaucoma is like this; there are no symptoms in early Glaucoma, and by the time your vision is affected to a point where you know something is wrong it's too late.

A screening test should be easy to do. It should be relatively inexpensive. It shouldn't hurt! The test should be able to identify pretty much anyone who MIGHT have the disease, and it definitely shouldn't miss anyone who actually HAS the disease (a false negative result). In a perfect world the screening test would not falsely find that healthy people have a the test (a false positive result), but we usually accept less accuracy here because we don't want to miss anyone who is at risk.

So how about Glaucoma screening? Well, high pressure is a risk factor for Glaucoma, so identifying people with high pressure will get them referred to an eye doctor which is what we want. There is something called a "nerve fiber analyzer" which will also do the same thing but with a little higher accuracy. Both of these screenings suffer from the expense of the equipment and the need to have trained people doing the test.

It turns out that for Glaucoma there is a really effective screening test that identifies one of the top two risk factors for developing the disease and losing vision: ask someone if they have a family member who has or had Glaucoma! Research has shown that a family history of Glaucoma, especially vision loss from Glaucoma, is the most important risk factor, and that if you DO have a family history you should have a complete Glaucoma examination at the eye doctor's office. Like Skyvision in Cleveland!

Do you have Glaucoma? Tell all of your relatives to have a complete eye exam.

When Should My Child Have A First Eye Exam?

Everyone at Skyvision Centers gets asked this question, both in the office and outside in the regular world: when should my child have a first eye exam?   Lots of kids, maybe even most kids, get a screening exam as part of their school experience, but even with that, is there an age when a child should have a complete eye exam?

There are two very definite answers to that question. If you have a family history of Amblyopia (lazy eye) or Strabismus (an eye that turns), then children in your family should have a complete eye exam at age 3. This is especially important if a brother or sister is the one with the eye problem.

Even if your child has had an exam at age 3, the doctors at Skyvision Centers think that EVERY child should have a complete eye exam just before starting kidnergarten or 1st grade. This exam is much more extensive than any eye screening exam and will find even small problems that might need to be solved. In addition, a potential problem might be found that would make the doctor suggest an earlier follow-up exam.

Vision is important for everyone, but it is especially important for your children as they enter their school years. A complete eye exam is part of a healthy approach to life!

When Should I Use Teardrops?

There are many degrees of Dry Eye so there are many answers to this question! For some people it's perfectly OK to just use an artificial tear when there is a little bit of discomfort. Feel a little dry? A tiny bit of scratchiness? Go ahead and put a drop in. 

Other people have Dry Eye symptoms all the time. The doctors at Skyvision like to tell these folks that they should use their tears just like they were a prescription medicine. 2, 3, sometimes 4-6 times a day on a schedule is sometimes what it takes to be comfortable with your Dry Eye.

It turns out that it is usually easier to prevent the Dry Eye symptoms from starting than it is to stop them once they start! In other words, the time to take your eye drops is when you DON'T have any symptoms. If you wait until your eyes feel badly it's already too late. 

Think of an image of a well with a bucket that hangs down into the water. If the well slowly drains all day long pretty soon the rope won't be long enough to reach the water. In order for the bucket to get to the water you first have to FILL UP THE WELL! Same thing with dry eye; if you don't keep the well full all day you won't get the benefit of the tears until you fill the well (your eye) back up! 

Ask one of the SkyVision Centers docs (Dr. White, Dr. Schlegel, or Dr. Kaye) what kind of artificial tear is best for you, and how much to use them.  There are many types of over-the-counter eye drops available.  If you need something more than artificial tears, there are ways to determine what is the best solution and the SkyVision Docs will work with you until you are comforable once again.

Choosing a Cataract Implant

You've just been told that you have a cataract and that changing your glasses will not make you see any better. The only way you can get better vision is by having cataract surgery. At this point there are two very important questions that you must answer. Number one: when do I wish to see better? As soon as the answer is NOW it's time schedule cataract surgery!

Now you have to answer question number two. Do I want to have to wear glasses? If I DO have to wear glasses after my cataract surgery, WHEN do I want to need to wear glasses? If you really think about it, this is actually pretty cool! You've probably worn glasses for something for many, many years. Either you need to wear glasses to read, or you need to wear glasses to see things far away, like for driving, or you need to wear glasses ALL THE TIME. Now you are about to have cataract surgery and guess what? You can choose NOT to have to wear glasses! How cool is that?!

At Skyvision Centers you have three general choices. A modern, High–Tech BASIC implant will give you fantastic vision, typically much better than you saw prior to your cataract surgery. With this Basic implant you'll need to wear glasses for most, if not all of your vision needs. Our Advanced Distance Vision LIFESTYLE lens implant typically gives you fantastic vision for faraway like driving or watching television. The Advanced Far–Away and Up–Close LIFESTYLE lens implant can make it possible for you to see EVERYTHING without wearing glasses!

So, having a cataract and needing cataract surgery can actually be something very exciting. Especially if you live in Cleveland and you are a Skyvision Centers Patient!

RevitalVision Re-Boot for Dr. White

He's back at it! Dr. White changed his RevitalVision program from the Sports Vision module to Low Myopia. His goal is to reduce the amount of time he is wearing the small distance prescription left over from his LASIK 13 years ago.

"Session 0 went just fine. This is the session where the program sets itself to me, where I am and what my vision is today. It's a little long--it took me about 34 minutes, but I scored a 94 so it looks like I'm off to a good start again. I'm sure the  8 or so sessions I did on the Sports Vision module helped."

The Science Behind Revitalvision

We'll keep you posted on Dr. White's progress. Everyone is very excited about this, especially Dr. White. He is even going to give an internet seminar on the subject for other eye doctors in August so he is VERY motivated to do well!

Over 40? Things to Remember for LASIK

LASIK is becoming more and more popular for people who are over the age of 40! There are some very important things to be thinking about before surgery, though. When a person starts to get into their 40's the near vision focusing begins to decline, a process called "Presbyopia". This can be a set-up for an unpleasant surprise after surgery if you don't think about it prior to your LASIK.

"Many people who are near-sighted don't realize how frequently they are removing their distance glasses to see things up close," said the SkyVision Centers surgeon Dr. Darrell White. "If they are around 45 or so we will sometimes put a contact lens on them and give them a chance to see what their reading vision will be like right after LASIK. This way there's no surprise when they can't read the newspaper the next day!"

Just like with contact lenses a patient can choose to do Mono-vision with LASIK. One eye is set for distance vision as usual, and one eye is slightly undercorrected leaving it near-sighted enough to be able to read. We will typically target a prescription that lets our patients read a menu and see their computer screens without wearing reading glasses.

It's almost never too late to think about LASIK! Even if you are over 40 it can still be a ton of fun to have great distance vision without wearing glasses or contact lenses. Dr. White always says the "LASIK is still one of the nicest things I've ever done for myself, even though I wear reading glasses a lot now." At SkyVision we will make sure you know what to expect after your LASIK!

100% Satisfied

How about that?! 100% of our new patients at SkyVision in the month of May were satisfied with their SkyVision experience. In fact, 99.5% were either very satisfied or EXTREMELY satisfied!

We survey all of our new patients every day to see how their SkyVision Centers experience went. It's very important to us that we not only provide the very best eye care possible, but we also want our patients to have a wonderful experience in the process. We ask each new patient if they would refer friends and family to see us for all of their eyecare needs. In May 90% of our new patients said that they would look for opprotunities to bring up their SkyVision experience so that they could send friends and family to see us!

From the very outset Dr. Darrell White, Dr. Scott Schlegel, and Dr. Gregory Kaye have been striving to create a real, true patient-centered experience. Most medical practices of all kinds are actually built around the needs of the doctors. At SkyVision Centers we think that might be backwards--everything should be centered on our patients. Each of us spends time every day monitoring your experience, from waiting time to inusurance processing, to making sure that you are getting exactly the right care for your particular needs.

So thank you for all of your kind words and your wonderful reviews. We DO want to hear from you directly, not only to tell us how nice your experience was, but definitely also when you think there might be something that we can do better! Here's hoping June is just as successful!