I asked one of my high school patients what percentage of students text. He answered, "100%." when I started practicing almost 30 years ago the pc was coming on the scene. I saw changes of vision in my patients who were staring at screens at work all day. That hasn't changed much. When you text, the phone is a lot closer. It will be interesting to see if this added amount of close-up viewing will affect one's distant vision.

I had a patient whom I hadn't seen for over 10 years. Upon his eye examination, he commented to me that because we observed possible changes in the retina due to hypertension, I had referred him to his primary care physician. Indeed there was hypertension. His physician also ordered for him at that time a psa and subsequently found out the patient had prostate cancer. His doctor stated that if he would have gone six months longer, he may not have survived.

I had a patient come in this morning for an eye examination. He had lasik eye surgery to correct his distant vision. He was capable of clear vision at distance and needed reading glasses for up close. One of his main complaints was that he could not read the greens when he was putting while wearing his sunglasses. So he did not use them playing golf. The problem is that his lenses were polarized. Normally polarization helps with the sun particularly when you're on the water. However, some golfers do have problems with polarized lenses, particularly around the greens. The second thing about his sunglasses was that they were made with glass lenses. I had a patient who was struck around the eye with a golf ball while playing. Fortunately, he was wearing lenses made of polycarbonate. The lenses did not shatter. I feel that glasss lenses possilbly would have shattered and done injury to the eyes. Also, by not wearing sunglases while golfing over a long period of time, the patient was exposing himself to increase risks of cataracts and macular degeneration.

I was hearing that the increase in texting has led to individuals developing carpal tunnel syndrome. In fact there are young individuals who text 100 times, per day. Viewing a screen that close for that duration could very well affect one's vision. This is especially true in that many of the prolific texters are young. For information regarding extreme close up work over a period of time, go to our website at www.wehelpuc.com.

I had the pleasure of attending the International Congress of Behavioral Optometry last week. Even though I was only able to attend one day of the Congress, the information I learned was wonderful. A lot of the information dealt with how we process information, visually. There were speakers from all around the world. I learned about a new lens that specifically for the over 40 set who work on a computer. I am anxious to try it on myself. Also I saw professors who
I had 30 years ago. I really enjoyed everything.

An issue often overlooked with children is eye safety. Particularly if the child doesn't need a prescription to see clearly. I have seen kids (and for that matter adults) who play various sports including soccer, tennis baseball, football and other sports who have suffered eye injuries from being hit by a ball, person or racket. These injuries sometimes are sight threatening. We recommend that anyone participating in sports should wear a sports goggle with impact resistant lenses for protection. If the individual wears glasses normally, they should be a special frame that will withstand substantial impact. It could make all the difference in the world.

I had a new patient come into the office with a very red eye. He was a contact lens wearer who had just used a different solution than what he was using previously. I am currently treating him. I am not sure whether he had an allergic reaction or the bottle he used was contaminated. Either way, when using contact lens solutions, try to stay with the same brand in order to avoid possible problems.