Contact Lenses and the Over 40 Set

One of the biggest challenges fitting contact lenses is when a patient is over 40 and wants contacts. If you fit just the far away situation, more likely than not the patient will have problems close up. There are three ways to deal with this. The first and by far the easiest is to fit both eyes for distance and then have the patient wear a pair of reading glasses over the contacts for near. The second way is to fit one eye for reading and one eye for distance. This has been shown to work in most but not all cases. The third and most challenging way is to fit multifocal contact lenses. These lenses are geting better all the time and many different companies manuafacture them. However, they don't work on everybody. The only way to fit them is to put them on the patient and see how they adapt. More times than not, you have to try multiple pairs on the patient until one pair works. Sometimes the patient can't adapt to any of the multifocals. Then the patient has to decide if they want one eye for reading and one eye for distance or if they want both eyes for distance and reading glasses over them. I had a patient today who wants to ride a bicycle and be able to see his speedometer. He's around 50. On the third pair of contacts we tried, the patient seemed fairly content with his far and near vision. In a number of cases when the over 40 patient can wear contact lenses, they're a lot more content as compared to their glasses. This is because when successfully fitted with contacts, there is no zone of vision that the patient can't see out of.

Feel Good Experience

Optometry,for me, is a real rewarding experience. On June 9, I had a patient scheduled. During the exam she related to me that the two daughters whom we saw previously, are doing really well. We had prescribed glasses for them. She told me that each one had a very significant increase in reading level just a few weeks after receiving the glasses. The second patient came in with a red eye with pain and discharge. We were able to prescribe both drops and an oral antibiotic ointment. Within two days, the infection had significantly improved and the patient was in total comfort. It's really neat, the wide areas of conditions that we could treat and the effects we actually have an people's lives.

Seminar for Lewis Homes

I had the pleasure of conducting a seminar on different aspects of vision for local residents in Rancho Cucamonga last week.  There were 53 individuals from kids to senior citizens there.  I really had a good time.  We discussed everything from contact lenses to eye disease.  We also discussed the effects of prolonged viewing of a monitors as well as the effects of one's vision on learning. 

The interest showed by the attendees was most rewarding for me.  If you'd like a seminar on vision for your group, please call us (909) 980-3535.

20/20 Isn't Everything

Many individuals feel as long as they're seeing 20/20, they don't need to have their eyes checked.  Your child could have 20/20 sight and still have a visually related learning problem.  This could include inability to read without losing one's place or not being able to read for long periods of time without headaches or fatigue.  Also you cannot rule out your child having some form of eye disease that could only be detected with an examination.

Regarding adults, they too could also have 20/20 both at distance and reading and still have problems.   Sitting in front of a terminal, smart phone or for that matter, any hand-held device, for hours on end for some patients is a very arduous task possibly causing eye, hand, back or shoulder strain.  Also the chances for developing eye disease increases with age.  We have also referred patients with peripheral vision problems in both eyes for neurological work-ups.  In some patients, tumors, strokes or aneurysms have been diagnosed.  A number of diseases in the body are first diagnosed after an eye examination.

This is just a few of the reasons to have regular eye examinations.