The Healthy Village

Your eyesight is a precious gift and something that can easily be taken for granted. It is only when your eyesight begins to fail or you have problems with it that you realize what you have and what you have lost.

Although all of us will experience deterioration in our vision as we age, there are certain things we can do to prevent losing or damaging our vision.

Stop Smoking For Your Sight’s Sake

Smoking is not only bad for your heart, your lungs, your circulation (and your finances) but it is also very bad for your vision. Studies have shown that people who smoke have seven times more risk of vision loss. So stop smoking (there’s plenty of help available today with hypnotherapy, nicotine patches, counseling) and you’ll be doing your eyes a big favor.

Eat Healthily For Your Eyes

Take a good look at your diet and consider what you are eating. Try to have a diet that is rich in vitamin A, zinc and minerals. This type of diet has been shown to delay age related macular degeneration and will improve your general health too.

Eye trauma through accident is far more common than it needs to be. Don’t think it won’t happen to me’. Ensure that you wear the necessary eye protection whenever you are participating in activities and sports that could damage your eyes. If you are carrying out DIY, wear protective goggles. If you are road biking, skiing, playing squash wear the recommended eye protection for that particular activity and look after yourself.

Long-term exposure to ultra violet rays without eye protection can cause cataracts and eye damage so make sure that you wear UV protective lenses when you are out in bright sunlight and your eyes will thank you for it.

If you are a diabetic, on strong medication or have problems with blood pressure, make sure that you go for regular check-ups with your optician or ophthalmologist so that you can be confident.

Rest Your Eyes

Give your eyes a break! If you use a computer, take a rest every 10 minutes or so and look away from the screen, stretch, stand up and blink a few times.  Give your eyes a treat sometimes by putting slices of cucumber on them and lying down for a break. They’ll thank you for it and look more sparkly and vibrant.

Only use eye drops that have been recommended by your optician or pharmacist and remember not to use any that have been open for a long time or are past their sell by date as this could create problems.

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Seeing like new again…..It’s almost like having a new set of eyes when you have LASIK done.
Now with the price for LASIK dropping in cost more and more people may elect to have this procedure done. You can now get LASIK done for as low as $299.00 per eye. First you need to make an appointment to see if you are a candidate for the procedure and if so your Doctor will discuss the different forms of laser with you to see what is best for you. Some people have different problems with their eyes that do not allow them to have the procedure or they may some other problem that will allow the procedure to be done but at a heftier price then normally. One of those situations is with people who may have a severe astigmatism then the cost would be higher somewhere in the $799.00 per eye price range. This is where the Doctor has to use the Visix laser due to the astigmatism. The Visix laser is more accurate and therefore more expensive to have done.

When having this done on the day of your surgery a nurse will have you sign all of the disclosure papers this will explain to you what could everything bad that could happen. For the most part though, hardly anything at all goes bad. Most Doctors have performed this surgery routinely. So any anxiety should be lessen.

How the procedure will be done is that the Doctor will use a computer to make a topographical picture of each eye and then calculate the exact shape of the lens that would give you perfect vision.

Once the computer is done doing that, the Doctor then cuts a small flap in the cornea of the eye and lays the flap back. Then the laser procedure is next. You will be surprise to know that the laser portion of the surgury only takes but a couple of minutes. And in all including recovery time the entire procedure will take about 45 minutes.

Usually right after the surgury the patient can already experience better vision. But it’s important to note that you must keep your eyes close for about 3 to 4 hours so that the flap can heal. The next day the Doctor will have you come in so that he or she can check how everything is healing and to test the vision of the eyes.

In most cases the patient will experience 20/20 vision the very next day. The only drawback to this is that sometimes you may want to rub the eyes when they itch but you must not touch the eyes for no reason for at least a week or so. Most patients will take that drawback to have 20/20 vision again.

A good advice if you are going to have the procedure done would be to pay the extra money and get the 1 year guarantee. If you don’t get the insurance you will have to pay the entire amount again.

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Ulises Tarmet is a retired ophthalmologist who has 36 years of experience working for in the San Francisco LASIK community helping people to improve their vision.

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Have you always hoped for better vision but was afraid to go through surgery to accomplish this.
Well here is some helpful information to go by.

There are many people in the world with vision problems. Nowadays with technology coming along as far has it has you have many choices to consider. The old method was to go with glasses or contacts now you have a third option and that is LASIK surgery. As with any procedure, there are positives and negatives that must be considered before having it done.
Now ask yourself this question do you really need to have LASIK done? You may want to consider natural vision therapy first before etching your current prescription into your cornea.
Now the odds aren’t great that the vision therapy will solve your vision problems enough that you can get rid of your glasses or contacts but in some cases it has worked.

That is why we have LASIK today; everyone is different in their expectations. If you are a person who wants immediate results and does not mind a permanent etching prescription in your cornea then you would be perfect with LASIK. You should read up and learn more about LASIK before opting for this expensive procedure, to make sure this is the right thing to do for you.

Now if you have already made up your mind that LASIK is for you then you may want to follow these pointers.

You want to make sure your Doctor uses the Interlace laser instead of the old method of using the Microkeratome to cut the initial corneal flap. The Interlace laser is 100 times more precise then Microkeratone.

When it comes to the reshaping of the cornea be sure that your Doctor uses the custom wavefront laser. The wavefront can get rid of the higher order aberrations.
This mans that you will get sharper vision after the surgery and lowers your chances of having halos, starburst or other complications that you would sometimes get from LASIK
You should consider a Doctor who invests in these technologies because the chances are he or she has your best interest in heart.

Next, you should keep aware of the problems that LASIK surgery can cause but in most of these cases it came from Doctors not using the Interlace and Custom wavefront technology together.
One of the problems with LASIK has been the LASIK 20/20 phenomenon. While some people do see 20/20 after the procedure is done it usually the vision is hazy or blurred. The reason being is because of the higher order aberrations and yet another reason to get Custom Laser done.

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Ulises Tarmet is a retired ophthalmologist who has 36 years of experience working for in the San Francisco LASIK community helping people to improve their vision.

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LASIK or as it know as Laser-Assisted in Situ Keratomileusis is the most common used keratomileusis eye surgery. The process involves re-shaping the corneal tissue by using an excimer laser. The laser consists of powerful ultraviolet. Ophthalmologists do the surgery to correct various types of vision problems. LASIK is the most popular type of laser vision correction eye surgery because the procedure has minimal pain and discomfort and rapid recovery.

The LASIK procedure utilizes technology to the most. The surgery consists of a computer system keeping track of the candidate’s eye position 4,000 times per second. At the same time, the laser is making precise programmed incisions. This really is not a risky procedure. LASIK eye surgery is a proven safe surgery that provides high and quick results so that candidates no longer are dependent upon wearing glasses or contact lenses. The laser reshapes the corneal tissue on the outer surface of the eye. When LASIK surgery is compared to other corrective eye surgeries such as using a blade to create the corneal flap, the number of complications is very low because of the preciseness and high technology of the laser.

The candidate is awake during the procedure. The candidate is given a mild sedative and numbing eye drops. During the procedure, the pain to the candidate is very minimal. The LASIK has a very low number of reported complications and provides quick and positive visual results. Most patients obtain 20/20 vision within a few months after the surgery. As with any type of surgery, there are risk of complications such as infection, halo effect in the eye sight, dry eye, and irritated eye.

Since LASIK eye surgery uses the most advanced technology, this procedure is becoming very popular. There is no concrete evidence on the long term complications of having LASIK eye surgery.

If you are considering LASIK correction eye surgery to not have to wear glasses or contact lenses, do the research on the ophthalmologist. Have fun not having to wear glasses or contact lenses.

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Ulises Tarmet is a retired ophthalmologist who has 36 years of experience working for in the San Francisco LASIK community helping people to improve their vision

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