Browsing: Eye Health
The page provides quick access to a list of common eye diseases, syndromes, health conditions, and other topics of health importance. The list is organized alphabetically. Links are provided to respective diseases sections that serve as a comprehensive and ultimate guide about the disease or health condition.
Eyes are the most complex and essential sensory organ of our body. Several parts of the eye work together to produce a clear vision. Most people suffer from various types of eye disorders such as age-related macular degeneration, cataract, diabetic eye disease, glaucoma, low vision and dry eye.
Visual impairment is a national and global health concern which creates a negative impact on the physical and mental health of an individual. These visually impaired people are at a high risk for chronic health conditions, accidents, social withdrawal, depression, and mortality.
Most people may experience an eye problem at some point in their life. Some of them may be minor conditions, which can be cured easily whereas others may require a specialist’s care. Eye disorders mostly occur in elderly people due to weakness of eye muscles or due to another medical condition such as diabetes, infections and brain or neuronal disorders.
It is ideal to undergo regular eye checkups, as many eye diseases do not show obvious symptoms. Early detection and treatment of eye problems could easily prevent vision loss.
Certain eye diseases which are quite prevalent worldwide include cataract, glaucoma, nearsightedness, farsightedness, astigmatism, diabetic retinopathy, dry eye syndrome, color blindness and conjunctivitis.
Eye drops are generally the preferred method of treating dry eyes. Many prescription and over-the-counter eye drops are available that a doctor may choose from and recommend for you based on your condition. These eye drops are often called artificial tears because they replace the missing water in the tear film of your eyes.
Bacterial conjunctivitis is usually treated with antibiotic eye drops or ointments. Artificial tears that are free of preservatives can be applied a few times in a day. You should not use prescription medicines such as steroids eye drops without a doctor’s prescription. To reduce the discomfort, you can apply a warm compress.
People with open-angle glaucoma and chronic angle-closure glaucoma generally do not show any symptoms early in the development of the disease. The symptoms of acute angle-closure generally include severe eye pain, headache, nausea, vomiting, and blurring. Sometimes, nausea and vomiting conditions are more intense than ocular symptoms.
A cornea transplant may be needed when eyeglasses or contact lenses are not effective enough to restore the vision, or if medications do not help the painful swelling in eyes. A cornea transplant can be recommended by an eye specialist in many conditions which involve damaged cornea such as keratoconus.
Dr Shinobu Ishihara from Japan introduced the most popularly known color blindness test in 1917. The test is a color perception test for red-green color deficiencies. It consists of a set of colored dotted plates (PseudoIsochromatic Plate or PIP), each of which shows certain numbers or patterns such as random lines.
Dry eyes are caused to lack of enough good quality tears or due to evaporation of the tears form the surface of the eyes too quickly. This causes a deficiency of lubrication affecting the health of eyes. Common causes of dry eyes are ageing, side effects of certain medications, certain medical conditions, and hormonal changes.
If you are facing problems due to glaucoma, the most important thing to note is that you are not alone. You should not limit your life because of this disease. It should be encouraging for you that most glaucoma patients never go blind. If the disease is diagnosed early, you may not lose much of the vision.
Dry eye is a common eye problem that occurs when your eyes do not produce enough quality tears or when the tears evaporate too quickly. The tears produced are inadequate and/or of poor quality. Dry eyes feel quite uncomfortable and can make it difficult to perform certain activities such as watching a TV or using a computer for extended time periods.
No permanent cure exists for dry eye syndrome. Many medical treatments are available that aim to easy the symptoms and…
Your doctor will first do an eye examination. Generally, the eye exam provides enough inputs to confirm whether you have dry eyes. If the test results are uncertain, your doctor will order some other tests. Schirmer’s test is a common test for diagnosis of dry eyes that identifies volume of tears produced.