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.

Computers and eyes: how to prevent eye strain.

Apr 25

Today we’re talking about computers and eyes – don’t worry, not computers with eyes, so there’s no chance of a T1000 coming back from the future to make off with your lunch money, and no spaceship controlling super computers will be reading your lips as you decide to shut them down. I wouldn’t venture out of the escape pods just yet, though, as were looking at reasons that your eyes suffer from strain when you use computers – and what can be done about it.

If you wear contact lenses, you will need to pay extra attention to how long you stay in front of a screen. It’s not always the screen itself that causes eye strain or dry eyes, but there are other factors at work. It might be the lighting of the room, or how often you take breaks that causes your eye strain. It’s important to use proper lighting, as this stops your eyes from straining to see the screen. You can eliminate exterior light by closing the blinds, and try to reduce interior lighting, too. If you have an office with white walls and desks, then the glare can be quite strong. In this instance it’s best to take a break. Go get yourself a cup of coffee – it’ll do wonders for your eyes.

Another tip for avoiding eye strain is of course to keep your eye drops to hand. If you wear contact lenses, then your eyes will dry out faster than if you don’t, which is an uncomfortable thought. You might want to try blinking more, too, as believe it or not you actually blink less when you use a computer. Sitting and staring at a screen is without doubt a short-cut to dry eyes, and it’s worth keeping these ideas in mind when you’ve got an all-nighter of essay writing/a great Xbox game on the cards.

Even if you’re reading a book rather than glazing over in front a screen, it’s a good idea to keep your eyes exercised. You can do this by shifting your focus away from the screen, and onto other points. For example, take a look around the room. Doing this is great exercise for your eyes. And stops them from getting tired.

Famous phrases about eyes – where did they derive from?

Apr 24

We at Vision Direct take an interest in all things eye related, and it’s no wonder we get all giddy with excitement when we think about our burgeoning eye lexicon. It’s not just contact lenses and contact lens solution soup here at Vision Direct towers – oh no. We know a good time when we see one, and word games are right up there. So without further ado, it’s time for us to walk down that optic nerve of fun and check out some of the eye phrases that have been catching our, er, eye recently.

There are heaps of famous quotes related to eyes, and some, like “An eye, an eye, my kingdom for an eye”, that we made up. A great quote related to eyes comes in the form of “The eyes are mirrors to the soul”. Now, Mrs Vision Direct was sure that this was Shakespeare, but a bit of research tells us that it is in fact an old proverb – Yiddish, to be precise. It’s fairly self-explanatory, but captures the beauty that first attracted us to the eye, and led to a grand career in contact lenses and other eye products.

The Bible can be a source of refuge for Vision Direct in our darker moments, not least because of the wonderful quotes on eyes contained therein. Well, they’re not exactly beautiful, but they’re certainly well known. “An eye for an eye” is a good one, coming as it does in the Old Testament, which is often full of vengeful heroes like Samson and Gideon. This was developed further in the New Testament through Jesus, and became the famous “turn the other cheek” maxim. Much later, Gandhi and Martin Luther King, jr, said that an eye for an eye “leaves everyone blind”. And how right they were.

Moving on, it’s time to talk about fruit. Apples, to be precise. They’ve played an important role in history, from Sir Isaac Newton to Steve Jobs and his shiny toys, and, of course, they make an important appearance in the Good Book. For did the serpent not tempt Eve with the fruit from the tree of knowledge? True, but you can also talk about the apple of your eye, which again comes from the Bible. This particular phrase refers to something or someone that you cherish – that is the apple of your eye.

Animals also have eyes, and form the basis of some other great phrases. You can have eagle eyes, or eyes like a hawk, meaning that you can spot delicious looking voles and carrion whilst on the wing. There’s also the “eye of the tiger”, a song made famous by the film Rocky III. It’s best to focus on the heroism part of this phrase, rather than the descent into self-parody which comes later.

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.

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.

Why you should neglect the high street and buy online.

Mar 21

It is, in case you hadn’t noticed, the year is 2012. That means that the world as we know it is coming to an end: the Mayan calendar, riots on the streets of Tottenham, the Lib Dems in power, Man City poised to win the league … The list is endless. But there’s no need to panic, just hunker down in your bunker and ride the storm out. But this does means no more heading out to the high street for your eyewear, shopping for online contact lenses instead.

There are other benefits to online contact lenses other than staying safe from plague, pestilence, and whatever else the year can throw at you. Buying things online is invariably cheaper, and contact lenses are the same. Without the overheads that high street retailers have to think about, Vision Direct can reduce prices on a whole lot of contact lenses, which is good news for the likes of you and I. The reductions stretch as far as 70% off. It doesn’t end there, either, as the lenses get delivered to your door. For free. And if you don’t feel satisfied, you can return them using FREEPOST. So there’s no reason to step outside whatsoever.

What with Vision Direct not being like a common or garden high street store, there’s also a lot more room for storage. This is great news for our customers, as it means more choice. In fact, it means the choice of 5 million lenses. Imagine all of those on the shelves. Actually, don’t, it’ll blow your mind.

As for quality, well some opticians will tell you that online contact lenses are substandard, and not as good as the high street. To this we can only say “Poppycock!” The contact lenses that you can buy online are of exactly the same quality as those you can buy on the high street. The optician just doesn’t want you going elsewhere. But why pay over the odds for your contact lenses when you can get them cheaper online? It just doesn’t add up. But if you do your sums right, you’ll see that buying online contact lenses makes perfect sense.

Manufacturing coloured contact lenses – different techniques

Mar 13

There are several ways to produce coloured lenses. In this post we will dig into the main reasons and techniques used for production of tinted or coloured contact lenses, how the contact lens manufacturers are using them and pros and cons with different approaches.

Handling tints are used to easier spot a lens that for example fell out, most soft and gas permeable contact lenses will have this included. An exception that does not contain handling tint is Hydron Zero 6.

UV-tint is protecting against harmful radiation, many lenses will have this included but it is worth to look out for in the product description to know for sure. Focus Dailies for one, which is a fairly popular daily disposable lens, does not contain UV-tint.

Printed opaque tints is a design for decorative lenses, where additional colours are printed onto the surface of the lens. The benefit is that the procedure is not very demanding and normally does not affect the oxygen permeability to a great extent. CibaVision commonly use this kind of technology for their coloured contacts (e.g.Freshlook lenses). proven to bequite effective. Not without problems, however. If not controlled properly, the technique can cause poor print quality. This can result in, for example, ink spiking causing discomfort and poor patterns and colour mixes. In fairness, despite certain drawbacks, very few techniques have the quality of Ciba Vision.

Most common to use for colouring lenses is a non-patented technology devised on Ciba Vision’s process, but not on their technology. This technology is based on polyurethane car paint technology. All car paints have HEMA in their formulation and HEMA is the main ingredient of any soft lens. Compared Ciba Vision’s technology, the technique is very basic with lots of issues. Despite this, the technique is popular and commonly used by manufacturers from Korea and China.

Laminate design is another technique primarily for cosmetic contact lenses, but here the colour is incorporated into the material and lens itself (like a sandwich). It means the lens have to become thicker which results in less oxygen permeability and a bulker lens. It also means the process is more complicated and specialized, therefore more expensive. Coopervision (CL Tinters) technology is patent restricted so for about 3-4 years to run, Other companies havethe licence from Coopervision to use this technology on their hand painted lenses. The technique works very well, more controllable so very few, if any, defects using this system.

Prosphetic opaque is a technique used for correcting ocular defects, where lenses are hand painted. Essilor Lunelle comes in a specialized version called Solaire, that covers part of the pupil of your eye for example.

Conclusively, your contacts can contain many different sorts of colours, other than for purely cosmetic use. Handling tints are used for practical usage, UV-tints are protecting from sunlight, while laminate and printed opaque designs are primarily for cosmetic use, prosphetic opaque are used to treat medical conditions.

101 failed laser surgeries – the horror stories!

Mar 12

Few things send a chill down the spine like a botched operation. Laser surgery is usually a safe option, and there’s not much that can go wrong – but there’s always that chance you’ll be wandering the streets, asking yourself why you didn’t just buy your contact lenses online. But instead of pre-emptively feeling sorry for your new Bride of Frankenstein looks, how about you get an injection of knowledge on what might happen… Are you sitting uncomfortably?

First up – and if this doesn’t curdle the blood, then nothing will – failed laser surgery might cause dry eye. This is nothing to be sniffed at, though, as symptoms of dry eye include soreness, itching, burning sensations, and your eyelid sticking to your eye. The nerves that are responsible for tear production are severed during the procedure, and studies have shown that these nerves almost never return to normal. “What’s the big deal?” you might think, eye drop bottle in hand. Well, around 20% of patients in clinical trials experienced worse or “significantly worse” dry eyes 6 months after surgery. Yikes! Have fun with those eye drops.

It’s not just being unable to weep with regret at not having visited Vision Direct to buy your contact lenses online that you’ll have to worry about. Many laser surgery patients have increased difficulty seeing in dim light, due to loss of contrast sensitivity, as well as suffering from visual distortion at night. This means halos and multiple images – not what you want when you’re driving along a country lane, or out for the night.

A litany of complications is also possible some time after surgery. They might only become evident weeks, months or perhaps even years after the procedure, and include inflammation, flap dislocation, retinal detachment, and epithelial in-growth. Because surgery creates a portal in the cornea, this can be used by microorganisms to penetrate the eye, and increase the risk of sight-threatening corneal infections. It’s enough to put you off your dinner.

More seriously, though, laser surgery is usually elective surgery – meaning there’s no reason to have it! Think long and hard about what’s the right choice for you, and if you feel some doubts nagging away, pick up some contact lenses online, and avoid becoming a scare story yourself…

Pregnancy and contact lenses – things to consider

Mar 8

There’s a lot on your plate when you’re pregnant, and not just bizarre cravings for chocolate cake and asparagus sandwiches at all hours. Alongside morning sickness and other delights, pregnant women can also experience problems with their vision.

It might seem obvious – and it’s certainly a phrase we’ve all heard at some point – but a woman’s body is going through a lot of changes. During pregnancy, that is. Her body is preparing itself to grow and deliver a little bundle of joy in a short 9 months. Her feet swell, her hormones are all over the place, and her blood pressure is up and down like Howard Hughes’ in an unclean room.

Blood pressure isn’t bad for mother or baby, however, but it can lead to swelling of the eyes. This in turn can affect vision, and so if you start suffering problems with vision, then the automatic thing to do is get yourself fitted for some glasses. This isn’t always the wisest choice, as the problems are only temporary. Once the baby arrives, everything is back to normal. It’s best to pick up some contact lenses online if the problems are causing discomfort, as they’re a cheaper alternative.

If you already wear contact lenses, this swelling or change in shape of your eyes might start to cause other problems. You might think that your contact lenses have become ill-fitting, or that your eyes are dry. Again, it’s likely that this is a short term problem, one that requires a short term solution. After consulting with your doctor, you can peruse contact lenses online and see which are the best for you.

Once your baby is born, you must check with your eye doctor again. If your change in vision was only temporary, then you’ll need to revert back to your old prescription. A change in vision during pregnancy usually isn’t very serious, but needs to be treated seriously. But it might be the least of your problems – after all, you might have twins …

How does the retina become detached?

Mar 7

Getting a detached retina sounds like a nightmare problem – and it is. It happens when the retina becomes separated from its underlying tissue, and unless the retina is reattached quickly, the problem may result in permanent vision loss.

This sounds like a pretty serious issue, so how do you spot retinal detachment? Well, if you notice spots in your vision or flashes of light, coupled with blurry or poor vision, then you might have a detached retina. Another sign is seeing a shadow or curtain descending from the top or across from the side, like the screenwipes in Star Wars. These signs don’t always come at once, and might happen gradually. But they add up to a nasty whole.

Sometimes, a retina might become detached after surgeries such as laser surgery – especially in those with bad nearsightedness – as well as cataract surgery. Certain illnesses and conditions can also bring on a detached retina, and on occasion it’s not quite enough to be cursed with a tumour or another eye disease, but you might have the displeasure of a detached retina, too. Diabetes and sickle cell disease sufferers might also suffer from retinal detachments, as they can cause fluid to build up within the eye. This build up of fluid pushes the retina away from the eyeball.

Some people believe that wearing contact lenses can cause retinal detachment, but nothing is further from the truth. Contact lenses are used in some treatments for a detached retina, as in some surgeries. It is always important to keep you eyes in good health, especially if you are near sighted or suffer from diabetes, and having regular checkups can certainly put your mind at rest.