Charity donations: Aiming for £20K

Dec 21

Vision Direct is supporting Fight for Sight, the main charity in the UK dedicated to funding research preventing sight loss and treating eye diseases.

Donate just 50 or 99 pence to Fight for Sight when making an online purchase for eye care products such as contact lenses. It is easy to do – just one click when you check out. The goal is to donate £20,000. A counter measuring the current donations is available online.

About Fight for Sight

Fight for Sight estimates that almost 2 million people in the UK and over 285 million worldwide are affected by sight loss.
Age-related causes of visual impairment and blindness are increasing, as is blindness, due to uncontrolled diabetes. Fight for Sight is determined to improve these statistics and create a future everyone can see.
Since 1965 the charity has been raising funds to support pioneering research to prevent sight loss and treat eye conditions.
Over the next few years the goal is to commit £20 million to fund the highest standard of eye research, which will help to reduce the number of children and adults affected by blindness.
As a member of the Association of Medical Research Charities (AMRC) Fight for sight complies with their guidelines on peer review and all research applications are assessed by a scientific panel and international leaders in relevant fields.

Achievements by Fight for Sight

The research funded saved the sight of thousands of premature babies through understanding and controlling levels of oxygen delivery.
Restoring sight by establishing the UK Corneal Transplant Service enabling over 52,000 corneal transplants to take place.
Funding the research leading to the world’s first clinical trial for choroideremia.
Bringing hope to children with inherited eye disease by helping to fund the team responsible for the world’s first gene therapy clinical trial.
Identifying new genes responsible for keratoconus and Nance-Horan syndrome.
Developing a new genetic test based on next generation DNA sequencing technology allowing more patients a definitive diagnosis for inherited eye conditions.
Registered charity number: 1111438

According to Fight for sight, eye research is underfunded because fatal diseases win the fight for government and charity funding. The organisation therefore is entirely dependent on voluntary donations – such as those raised through Vision Direct. Please support Fight for sight through Vision Direct and help make sight loss a thing of the past!

dailies or monthly ?

Nov 16

Daily Contact Lenses

They are made as disposable one day contact lenses, and you throw them away every evening. Disposable contact lenses are becoming more and more popular. They offer freedom, because they require no maintenance: you are wearing a new pair of sterile contact lenses every day.

Comfort is optimal and the risk of infection or allergies is significantly reduced. These daily disposable lenses can be used in rotation with other monthly or traditional lenses.

WHO CAN WEAR THEM?

People who suffers from allergies
People who want to make life easier for themselves and do not want to bother with lens maintenance or replacement frequency.
For lens wearers who travel frequently (no lens case or solutions to transport)
For athletes who need to replace their glasses with something more convenient. For pool users, lenses are not recommended for swimming because the risk of infection is high.

Monthly lenses

They are designed to be worn for up to four weeks before being discarded. They cater for all available corrections. These are the most commonly used contact lenses for regular contact lens wearers and represent the best quality/price ratio.

They are now very easy to handle. Solutions have adapted to allow easy lens and cleaning maintenance. However, some basic hygiene rules must still be respected. You have to clean your monthly contact lenses every day. Then, place the contact lenses in their lens case with the contact lens solution for the night. At Vision Direct.co.uk, we also advise you use an additional saline solution to avoid further problems with deposits.

WHO CAN WEAR THEM?

For budget conscious regular lens wearers who want the best price to quality ratio

Allergy and contact lenses part III – Allergy to the contact lenses itself.

Sep 11

There are two different types of soft contact lenses: the hydrogel and silicone hydrogel. These contact lenses are polymer water-filled, flexible and elastic.

Allergies and contact lenses

Contact lenses are on the surface of the eye. It is therefore possible to be allergic to the lens material. Soft contact lenses are on the conjunctiva of the eye and are in contact with eyelid during blinking. The conjunctiva is a thin membrane covering the white of the eye and the eyelids. The conjunctiva contains cells that rapidly respond to allergens. If you are allergic to the polymer the laboratory is using, it may cause redness, itching, tearing or discharge of mucus, and generally makes lens wear impossible.

Sometimes, it’s hard to tell the difference between an allergy and contact lenses simply being too tight. It’s very easy to fix the issue of a tight lens with your optician.

Tight lens syndrom

Normally the lenses must have slight movement with blinking. Soft lenses are moving a few millimeters with a blink, while hard lenses or gas permeable move more on the cornea. These movements allow better oxygenation of the cornea. With soft lenses and gas permeable lenses, the oxygen passes through the lens. For various reasons, a lens can lock on the eye during wear. This happens if the lenses are too tight at the start or when dry eye occurs. The oxygen level of the cornea decreases, then the cornea swells. This phenomenon increases the tightening and swelling. Symptoms during this period are redness, eye irritation with burning and a sensation of dryness. The vision can deteriorate and halos around lights can be observed. In this case, you simply need to change the parameters of the contact lenses you’re wearing.

With previous articles, we covered the most common case of allergy with contact lenses. Be cautious, don’t hesitate to ask an optical professional if you have any doubt or queries regarding comfort. This will help you to feel comfortable with your contact lenses for years. If you have any further queries, don’t hesitate to send an email to me, Benjamin, Vision Direct’s optician. You can reach me at Benjamin@visiondirect.co.uk. I will be glad to help you.

Corneal Ulcers – Symptoms, Causes, and Treatments

May 11

What is a Corneal Ulcer?

A corneal ulcer, or ulcerative keratitis, is an open sore that develops on the surface of the eye. An infection causes inflammation of the cornea, and although a common condition, if left untreated can lead to serious, long term visual impairment.

What Causes a Corneal Ulcer?

The main cause of a corneal ulcer is a viral or bacterial infection. A range of bacteria can lead to corneal ulcer development, which is why it is so important for users of our online contact lenses to stick to a proper eye care routine. Eye conditions like corneal ulcers are one of the reasons why contact lenses need to be thoroughly sterilised regularly. One-day online contact lenses offer a more hygienic alternative, as they are discarded at the end of each day and replaced with a new sterile pair the next day.

Corneal ulcers can also be caused by chemical injury, as well as by a range of conditions that allow the eyes to be more exposed to bacteria, such as long term vitamin A deficiency, dry eyes, distichiae, where the eyelashes grow incorrectly, corneal dystrophy, and ectropion, which is an eye condition that causes the lower eyelid to turn outwards. If left untreated, ectropion can prevent the eyelids from closing properly, and can lead to the development of a corneal ulcer as the eye is insufficiently protected from bacteria, usually warded off by bacteria-fighting tears.

What is the Cornea?

If you imagine the eye as a camera, the cornea is the camera lens. It is the transparent outer lens at the front of the eyeball, through which you can see the pupil and the coloured iris. It is the cornea that bends light rays so that a visual picture of the world around you can be projected into the retina at the back of the eye, transmitting these images to the brain. Corneal ulcers can interfere with this process, preventing light from reaching the retina, causing distorted or cloudy vision. The inflammation caused by a corneal ulcer can also cause severe pain, and sensitivity to light.

Corneal Ulcers – the Symptoms

Left untreated, corneal ulcers can worsen, and leave you with serious and permanent eyesight problems. The earlier a corneal ulcer is detected, the easier it is to treat, so it pays to know the symptoms. If you find you’re experiencing any of the following symptoms, you should consult your GP:

Persistently blurred vision
Sensitivity to bright light
Swelling of the eyelids
Eye pain and/or eye redness
Any pus or liquid draining from the eye

Corneal Ulcers – Treatment Options

The treatment of a corneal ulcer will depend on the both the cause, and the severity of the ulcer. Typically, a corneal ulcer will be treated with a course of antibiotics. A fungal corneal ulcer will require topical anti-fungal treatment, while viral corneal ulceration will require anti-viral treatment, typically in the form of an eye ointment. Pain medication may also be prescribed, often in the form of special eye drops to dilate the eye pupil.

Most corneal ulcers will heal up within a week, but deeper ulcers may require corneal surgery, special contact lenses, or a corneal transplant to correct the cornea and ease pain.

Why Routine Eye Exams are the Key to Better Health

May 4

Whether you’re looking for a new pair of frames or the right online contact lenses, eye examinations are an essential part of determining the correct eye prescription for you. But during an eye exam, your optometrist will do far more than just determine your prescription. Regardless of your physical health or age, eye tests allow your optometrist to check for serious eye conditions, and indicators of your overall health too. As well as revealing eye problems, eye exams are often the first indicators of more general, and more serious, health conditions, such as diabetes and high blood pressure.

Who Needs Regular Eye Check-Ups?

Whether you feel you have problems with your vision or not, everyone should have their eyes tested periodically as an important part of maintaining our overall health, not just for keeping our eye prescriptions up to date. It’s important for children to have their eyes tested regularly too, as vision problems in young children can lead to slowed learning development, while the earlier these eye problems are detected in young children, the easier they can be to treat.

What your Optometrist is looking For

During an eye exam, besides determining corrective eye prescriptions for glasses and online contact lenses, your optometrist will check for a range of common, and more serious, eye conditions, as well as serious bodily health issues. Some of the things that your eye doctor will routinely look for include:

Refractive and Focusing Errors. Refractive errors, such as nearsightedness, farsightedness and astigmatism, are common, and are corrected easily with glasses, contact lenses or refractive surgery. Your optician will also check to see if you have any focusing problems, such as presbyopia. While focusing issues commonly occur as we age, children can suffer from focusing issues too.

Amblyopia. This condition can lead to permanent vision impairment if left untreated. With amblyopia, one of the eyes is turned, or has a significantly different prescription to the other. Images received via the blurry eye will automatically be turned off by the brain as it tries to create a clear visual picture, but by patching the stronger eye for a period, the blurry eye will gain strength, and the eyesight balance will be restored.

Strabismus. This is the medical term for crossed, or turned, eyes. During your eye exam, your optometrist will check to see that your eyes are working together in unison. It’s important to check for this condition as, left long term, strabismus can lead to amblyopia and problems with depth perception.

Eye Alignment. Even the slightest eye misalignment can lead to binocular vision problems, near vision problems, as well as painful eye strain and headaches. Your eye examiner can check for even the most minute misalignment issues and help you correct them.

Diseases. As well as problems with vision, optometrists are able to detect a whole range of health problems during an eye exam, including eye diseases like glaucoma. Early detection often means that any permanent vision impairment is avoided and that the condition is easier to treat. Besides diseases of the eye itself, your eyes act as indicators of other health problems, such as high blood pressure, high cholesterol, and diabetes. Tell tale signs of diabetes can appear in the form of swollen macula, and small eye blood vessel leaks.

So eye exams do so much more than just help us correct our vision. The eyes are truly a window to our general overall health, and with such a wide range of conditions so easily detected with a simple eye exam, we all owe it to ourselves to make routine eye tests part of our everyday health care.

What causes lazy eye? And what treatments are available?

Apr 30

What do Paris Hilton, Abraham Lincoln, TV’s Colombo, Johnny Rotten, and Melissa-Joan “Sabrina the Teenage Witch” Hart all have in common? That’s right, they all have or had lazy eye.

Lazy eye, also known as ‘amblyopia’, is an eye condition that cannot be corrected by glasses or online contact lenses. It is not caused by any disease, rather the brain does not fully recognise images seen by the affected eye. The condition usually only affects one eye, but may sometimes affect both, resulting in a reduction of vision in each eye. It’s important to remember that lazy eye doesn’t lead to a loss of vision, only a reduction.

So, what causes lazy eye? Different things can cause it, such as the constant turning of one eye (strabismus), different vision in each eye (anisometropia), and a blockage in an eye due to a cataract, a drooping lid, or other trauma. Lazy eye can be treated when you’re still young, so if you have children then it’s a good idea to get them checked out sooner rather than later.

The most common of these causes is anisometropia. Usually, the eyes have the same qualities in terms of vision and light refraction, whereas with anisometropia, they are different. This can be corrected with glasses, or you can look for online contact lenses. Soft disposable lenses can be used, though if you have other problems such as astigmatism, then custom-made contact lenses are the best course of action. As usual, check with a doctor.

Other treatments include forcing the lazy eye to be used, by patching over the unaffected eye or by using topical atropine eye drops in it. This has to be managed well, as it can result in reverse lazy eye in the good eye – hardly the situation we’re aiming for.

Contact lenses are often the standard method of dealing with lazy eye – good news for us all, thanks to their ease of use. Children who don’t fully understand their condition, or their treatment, can use contact lenses and not have to go through the difficulty of wearing glasses.

How does melatonin work?

Apr 27

Put those packets of crisps away, straighten those ties, and tuck in those shirts – it’s back to school for you, and first class is science. Here at Vision Direct High we want to give you the best knowledge that free online blogs can offer, so get those textbooks at the ready as we delve into the dark and mysterious world of melatonin.

Right, pipe down class, and turn to page 103. Read from the top of the page, would you Johnson? Melatonin is a hormone that is found in people, animals, and plants. In humans and animals, it’s produced by the pineal gland in the brain, and it affects different biological functions. It is a powerful antioxidant, and protects strands of DNA.

Thank you, Johnson. Jones, continue boy! In humans, melatonin helps control the sleep-wake cycle by causing drowsiness and lowering the body temperature. This is called the circadian rhythm. As a person ages, the amount of melatonin produced decreases, meaning that you sleep later and wake later as you get older.

Good. Now you, Davies. Melatonin shouldn’t be confused with melanin, which affects skin and eye pigmentation. Melatonin production is affected by light that enters the eye through the retina. When less light enters the retina, melatonin production is triggered, leading to drowsiness and the need to sleep. Small amounts of melatonin can shift the circadian clock, meaning that you sleep and wake earlier than before. This will affect you even if you wear contact lenses. Online stores stock glasses that allow you to adjust to different times and earlier hours, as they block certain light, meaning that you sleep earlier.

Right, there’s the bell for break. Don’t forget your homework, and I want to see your books on my desk at the beginning of each class.

Eye test 101: everything someone can expect from an everyday eye test.

Apr 23

Eye tests are pretty routine, and are really nothing to worry about. You don’t have to face any needles, for a start, and you can do it sitting down. What’s not to like about that? We’re not talking Clockwork Orange-style sitting down – in case you were wondering – and you certainly won’t be hearing any Beethoven. There are different stages to eye tests, and whether you’re thinking about prescription lenses, coloured contact lenses, or just a simple check up, there are some things worth checking out.

The optometrist will want to check different aspects of your eye, such as pressure, focus, your retina, optic nerve, and the outer surfaces of your eyes. Each of these checks uses different techniques and equipment, and each one is as painless as the other.

Firstly, lets look at the classic test, the ophthalmoscope. This is the special torch used to look at the retina at the back of the eye, and can reveal information about your optic nerve. Your eye doctor will darken the room, and shine a light into your eyes. This might leave shadows in your vision, but can help your eye doctor find out it you’re susceptible to diabetes or high blood pressure.

There are a couple of very precise eye tests which are used to detect more than just eye health. A well-known test, called the Schirmer’s test, measures the health of the tear duct by detecting a person’s tear quantity. For the contact lens wearer, the Schirmer test is important because uncomfortable contact lenses can dry out the eye – finding the right pair is important.

Another well-known test is the TTT/NIBUT test. Not to be confused with the Schirmer test, the NIBUT test measures a person’s lachrymal film. In terms of contact lenses, this is a very important test as it is essential for the eye to retain the tear film after each blink. The eye’s lachrymal health can be measured before starting to wear contacts.

Another test commonly used by doctors involves using a slit lamp, which is a powerful, illuminated microscope. This is used to check the outer surfaces of your eyes, such as the lens, cornea, and iris. Your eye doctor will use it to check for scratches or abnormalities. If you wear contact lenses or colour contact lenses, then this is an important test.

When your eye doctor tests the pressure in your eyes, he’ll use something called a tonometer. This blows puffs of air at your eyes, which is then bounced back to the machine. This allows it to read the pressure of your eye, which can indicate the onset of glaucoma.

To test the focus of your eyes, the eye doctor will use an autorefractor, which can help tell your doctor what type of glasses or contact lenses you need. With all these different checks, your eyes are in good hands. It’s important to remember to have regular eye checks, even if you’re thinking of using coloured contact lenses.

How optical illusions trick the eyes

Apr 20

Everyone has seen an optical illusion before – you know, is this a rabbit or a duck? – but not everyone knows how they work. Optical illusions should really be known as visual illusions, as they do play tricks with your mind, after all. And it’s these tricks that make M.C. Escher drawings look like never ending staircases, or a couple of faces look like a vase. Or is it a vase that looks a couple of faces? It’s difficult to tell. Whether you’re wearing contact lenses or not, optical illusions can be a bit of fun, or some serious art.

There are many different types of visual illusions. Some are to do with shape, others to do with colour, and there are a host of other illusions that relate to pictures, or size, or distance, or geometrics, or just sensory perception itself. Some illusions rely on voluntary eye movement to produce an illusion, whilst others rely on us to focus on a particular point of the image. Other illusions occur without any other stimuli other than the image itself.

Illusions happen because of the different cells and receptors of the eye perceive images and colours at different rates. This means that a “false” image is relayed to the brain. The eye only perceives a limited amount of visual information at any time, but the brain keeps constructing and reconstructing that information – this gives us the experience of sight. But because the brain is constantly processing a limited amount of information, if that information is distorted, or contains a certain combination of shapes, colours, or other stimuli, then it creates the experience of a visual illusion.

All complex stuff. But don’t fret: even if you’re wearing contact lenses, you’ll still be able to enjoy visual illusions like Magic Eye puzzles.

Make sure you get the right contact lenses to catch sight of The One!

Apr 19

Love at first sight?

Ever wondered if there’s a little biology behind this fabled saying? When you’re sitting pretty at a bar or party and you catch sight of the man or woman of your dreams, what you see is setting off a whole load of nervy triggers around the body.

Behind all the thrill and excitement of seeing someone that gets your heartbeat racing is some solid science. There is a reason why your beholden seemed to hit a nerve as soon as you saw them – it’s because they did.

Our eyes are highly complicated nervous systems. The Optic Nerve, in particular, is the most important. The optic, also known as the cranial nerve II, is a continuation of the axons of the ganglion cells in the retina. The optic nerve, which acts like a cable connecting the eye with the brain, actually is more like brain tissue than it is nerve tissue.

To you and me, it means that this extra-special nerve carries all the vital, visual information from the eye to the brain. Indeed, beauty is in the eye of the beholder, but it is also in the hands of the brain. When we set our eyes on a physical specimen that sets of lustful desires, a message is sent from eye to brain. With approximately 1.1 million nerve cells in each optic nerve, there is some pretty complicated and epic activity at play! What we see hugely effects the way we think and in a split second, we can feel like we’re falling…

So what if you’re eyesight isn’t so good and you miss out on this life-changing wonder? For love at first sight, make sure you’re wearing the right contact lenses. You never know what you might be missing out if you don’t – the love of your life might pass by and your brain will never have the privilege of seeing who he or she was…

There are things that are worth seeing – like your future partner. Don’t let blurry vision stop your optic nerve sending the right messages.