Uncategorized Archives - Page 2 of 24

07 Dec Does the pinhole test’s hole improve visual acuity in keratoconus?

Posted at 15:25h in Uncategorized by woodhamseyedev

"Floaters" are not caused by LASIK, PRK, or for that matter, IOL surgery for cataracts. Nevertheless, this can be a common complaint from patients. Why is that? The pinhole test uses a 1.0 mm hole in an opaque disk to determine how much of a visual...

07 Dec Why should I accept cataract surgery if I’m already blind in one eye? Will it help me see again?

Posted at 13:02h in Uncategorized by woodhamseyedev

If you only have one good eye, it is truly a scary decision to consider having an operation of any kind on the other eye. After all, there is no "back-up" should there be a serious complication. And nobody can tell you honestly there will...

17 Nov Which is more dangerous eyesight, a minus 5 diopter Rx or a minus 7.5?

Posted at 15:54h in Uncategorized by woodhamseyedev

It depends on what you mean by "dangerous." Obviously the higher degree of myopic (nearsighted) Rx with a -7.5 D. correction is going to be worse uncorrected at distance than the -5 D. eye. But the difference is negligible from the point of view of how well...

20 Oct Why is laser eye surgery often not covered by insurance?

Posted at 11:56h in Uncategorized by woodhamseyedev

Refractive (vision) surgery as it is called is considered “elective” rather than “medically necessary” by commercial and government medical insurance programs. This is because historically nearsightedness, farsightedness and astigmatism were not considered medical conditions. These were the business of Optometry and considered a trivial enough...

22 Sep What is my prescription in 20/20 terms? Idk if I’m wording that right but my prescription is +3 -5 in both eyes and I always wonder what the numbers would be in the other form.

Posted at 12:14h in Uncategorized by woodhamseyedev

This is a very common question eye doctors are asked. The number ratio "20/20 or 20/40 etc." is a measurement of visual acuity. If your visual acuity is not 20/20, it can be from pathology (like cataract) or it can be from what we call "refractive error" e.g. nearsightedness, astigmatism, farsightedness -which are not...

22 Sep How bad is -14 eye Power for myopia? Will it eventually result in blindness?

Posted at 12:03h in Uncategorized by woodhamseyedev

A lens Rx for -14 Diopters tells us you have a very, very high degree of nearsightedness (myopia). This would be considered in the "severe" range. Of all the people who are myopic, less than 2% are worse than -10 Diopters. Myopia, however, is not a...

08 Sep Humans are practically defenseless. Why don’t wild animals attack us more?

Posted at 12:32h in Uncategorized by woodhamseyedev

It's a 19th Century myth that humans' sense of sight and smell is weak compared to the rest of the animal kingdom. The thing that probably stops most predators from killing us, over the course of our evolutionary history, is that we see them before they...

25 Aug The cylinder rating on my eye prescription has changed from negatives to positives, and back to negatives again. Why could that be?

Posted at 12:38h in Uncategorized by woodhamseyedev

There are two conventions used among eye doctors on how to notate a typical glasses prescription: minus cylinder or plus cylinder. They are functionally the same (at least at the level of accuracy required in spectacle lenses). In effect, it depends on whether you measure from...

11 Aug Why do you see starbursts around lights after cataract surgery?

Posted at 12:46h in Uncategorized by woodhamseyedev

Well, not everybody does! Cataract surgery is the replacement of the clouded, natural lens of the eye with an artificial intraocular lens (IOL), or "lens implant." Despite the tremendous advances in ophthalmic technology, there is still no IOL that has been developed that can successfully reproduce the...

11 Aug Do colors exist outside the brain?

Posted at 12:36h in Uncategorized by woodhamseyedev

Not really. A "color" is what we call a categorization within our conditioned brain of a particular combination of not just wavelength, but saturation and hue. Color is not really "out there." But the different wavelengths of light are really "out there."Am I just playing...

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