First year anniversary!

Happy Anniversary to us!

It's been one year since we opened our doors and began working for the fine people of Calgary. We've loved being a part of the Beltline, Mt. Royal and Mission-Cliff Bungalow communities this past year. We look forward to spending many more years helping you see your world clearly and keeping your eyes safe and healthy.

Come see us during the Lilac Festival this May 31st! We'll be located just outside of our office at 1518 4th Street SW! If you stop by our booth you can enter to win a brand new, free TV and help a chairity too! (Details to come)!

To celebrate our first year of service to our community we're having a huge sale on June 13th! Come by and check it out for some amazing savings. (Details to come shortly for this too)!

Thank you for letting us be a part of your community and your health this past year and many years to come.

Dr. Mark Ross and the team at Eye Spy Optometry

I should see an eye doctor for that? - Eye Infections

There is a lot of confusion about what optometrists really do. We are so stereotypically associated with asking people "Which is better, 1 or 2?" and correcting vision problems that people are sometimes surprised to hear that we do a lot more! To help with the confusion I decided to start this new blog series "I should see an eye doctor for that?". Some might surprise you, some might not. In today's blog I want to go over one that should be obvious: eye infections.

Eye infections, often known as pink eye, are really common. Your eye might be red, gooey, watery, itchy, sore and your vision may be blurred. They aren't pleasant. So if you wake up with a nasty red eye who are you going to call? If you said Ghostbusters congratulations for being born in the 80's. Assuming your eye isn't haunted though you're going to need a doctor. So, do you go see your medical doctor or your doctor of optometry?

Medical doctors are of course fully trained to deal with eye infections and can prescribe you what you need. So, why would you see an optometrist instead? 

1. Optometrists have specialized equipment. This equipment is designed to look closely at the eye to determine what type of infection you have, how serious it is and if it is actually an infection or something else. Most MDs do not. Having this information means we can target the infection directly leading to faster healing times and a lower chance of a misdiagnosis (which could make the problem worse depending on what is prescribed).

2. There's no wait! You can generally get in to see an optometrist within a few minutes. My MD is great but I almost always have to wait to get in even when I have an appointment. The wait times at an ER for something like this will be brutal because it's not an emergency and you'll be waiting for ages.

3. It's fully covered by Alberta Health Care. So long as you provide us with your Alberta Health Care number a visit for an eye infection is considered medically required.

So, it's faster, it's free and we have all the specialized equipment and training to make a good diagnosis and fix your infection. There's no reason not to come see an optometrist! After all, if you had a toothache would you go see your medical doctor or would you see your dentist?

If you want to read more feel free to check out the following links or as always you can contact us on Twitter, Facebook, Google +, via our website or phone us at (403) 474-6744.

Canadian Association of Optometrists - Conjunctivitis

American Optometric Association - Conjunctivitis

All About Vision - Pink Eye

Eye Spy Easter Egg Hunt

Do you enjoy Easter? It can be a really fun time of year with all the chocolate, Easter egg hunts, Easter bunnies and time with family. What could make Easter better? Here at Eye Spy we think enjoying your very own adult Easter egg hunt would make your April more fun than ever.

The Easter bunny has been good to us here at Eye Spy Optometry.

So how does this latest contest work? It's pretty easy.

  • Come and purchase glasses or a year supply of contact lenses from Eye Spy Optometry
  • Pick an egg from the basket and save up to 50% off your purchase if you pick the lucky egg! You're guaranteed to save something no matter what though since every egg is a winner (there are 10% off your purchase or $100 off your purchase in there too).

That's it! It's as simple as that! *

So don't miss out! This Easter egg hunt lasts until April 30th so don't miss your chance to re-live your childhood and save on new glasses too!

*The only restriction we have on this fun promotion is that it cannot be used with our package deals.

 

"The Dress"

It's been a while since 'the dress', we all know the one by now, appeared online. You may have already seen my Facebook post explaining why some people saw white and gold and others saw black and blue but I thought it would be a great idea to explain things in a bit more detail.

If you really want to break the internet you don't need a Kardashian, you need a dress that looks different colours to different people. #thedress #blueandblack #whiteandgold

The most important thing to know is that you aren't crazy and that seeing either colour combination is normal. As with so many things in life what is important is context. A perfectly innocent phrase heard out of context may sound shockingly inappropriate. A perfectly blue and black dress in the wrong lighting may suddenly seem to be white and gold to certain people. What makes this situation interesting and unique is that different people seeing the same dress under the same conditions see different things. It's the fault of the lighting in the picture, NOT the lighting around you when you look at the picture.

The frilly part of the dress, according to most reliable sources, is black and the rest of the dress is really blue. So how can someone possibly see the black part of the dress as yellow and the blue part of the dress as white? To help this make sense all we need is a little help from the CIE colour chart below.

This is the CIE colour wheel. It is ridiculously helpful at making confusing colour problems make sense. Add or subtract certain amounts of light away and you move from one end of the scale to the other. Blue, as seen here in the bottom left, can become white and eventually yellow if you add more and more yellow light.

The key to the dress is the surrounding lighting. From the chart above it's not hard to see that if we add yellow light to the colour blue it slowly will shift from blue to white. Black is the absence of any reflected light. If more yellow is added to the colour black it will change to yellow or in this case, gold. So if we add more yellow lighting to a picture of a blue and black dress it makes a lot of sense that it would appear to be white and gold instead (to be clear, this is only true of reflected light. If you add lots of yellow paint to blue or black paint this won't work and you'll just end up with a mess). What makes the dress really interesting is that some people see it as blue and black and some people see it as white and gold while looking at the exact same picture at the exact same time. Why is this happening?

Whenever you look at any colour in any lighting condition your brain has to edit out the surrounding lighting so things don't look like totally different colours at different times of the day and different lighting conditions. In most situations and looking at most pictures we all subtract out the same colours or add in the same colours. In the case of the dress a certain number of people's brains subtract out the yellowish lighting so the dress looks blue and black. Some people's brains add in more yellow making the dress look a vibrant white and gold. The dress may really, truly be blue and black but each of us will perceive the dress differently depending on whether we subtract out the yellow light or add in more.

So, in the end, you aren't colour blind and you aren't going crazy. It's totally the fault of your visual cortex and some higher end perceptual calculations that you can't control. I hope this has helped make the dress make way more sense.

If you have any questions about this or anything else feel free to contact us on Twitter, Facebook, Google +, via our website or phone us at (403) 474-6744.

Macular Degeneration: A tale of two types (Dry ARMD)

In my last blog about ARMD (age related macular degeneration) I went over the bare basics of what macular degeneration is.  There’s a lot more to macular degeneration than what I discussed and many people are confused about what exactly is going on. In this blog I want to go over one form of macular degeneration: dry macular degeneration.

Dry ARMD is the most common form. It makes up about 90% of all  ARMD. The good news though is that it only accounts for about 10% of serious vision loss.  That’s not to say that people with dry ARMD don’t suffer a loss of central vision and have trouble seeing, it just means that they are still able to function reasonably well. But what IS dry ARMD. What does it mean? For that we have to dive into a little bit of anatomy and physiology (I promise it's not too hard).

You might remember from science class that our retina has a bunch of different layers. The important ones for ARMD are the photoreceptors (better known as the rods and cones) that detect light and the retinal pigmented epithelial layer that keeps food and oxygen going where it should (these layers were not named to be short… that’s why we call that one the RPE). So what goes wrong in someone with ARMD? It all starts with little yellow flecks called drusen.

The yellow flecks in the middle are drusen. You don't want these.

Drusen are thought to be clumps of waste product from the cells of the retina that haven’t been cleared out by your blood vessels. Some more recent research suggests they come from ongoing inflammation. Regardless of where they come from they mean trouble. Drusen on their own do not mean that someone has ARMD. In fact the great majority of people with drusen don’t have ARMD at all! Drusen are a huge risk factor for developing the disease though and shouldn’t be ignored.

Like many things in the eye the exact way that drusen cause damage to the RPE isn’t fully understood but the most commonly accepted reason is that drusen decrease the amount of food and oxygen that can get to the RPE. Unsurprisingly this isn’t good for the RPE and it dies. Since the RPE’s job is to feed the photoreceptors in the eye when the RPE goes the photoreceptors in the same area die off too. This degeneration of the RPE and photoreceptors is what we call dry macular degeneration or if you want to be really fancy and impress your friends the official term for this is geographic atrophy.

In some cases though, these drusen do not lead to degeneration of the RPE and photoreceptors. In some cases they cause wet macular degeneration. We'll learn more about wet ARMD in another blog.

If you want to read more feel free to check out the following links or as always you can contact us on Twitter, Facebook, Google +, via our website or phone us at (403) 474-6744.

CNIB - ARMD

Doctors of Optometry Canada - ARMD

AMD.org - Dry ARMD

Mayo Clinic - Dry ARMD

Snap! - what to do when your glasses break

If you wear glasses chances are you've been in the nasty situation of having your glasses break. It's possible you stepped on them, they fell onto something hard, the dog ate them or they were just getting old and snapped. No matter how it happened you have an issue because you need those things to see. I always recommend that people have a back up or spare pair of glasses for situations like this but I know from personal experience that glasses seem to break at the worst possible time and usually when you don't have a spare pair.

The first question everyone asks is "Can this be fixed?" The answer is frustrating because it really depends on what type of damage has happened. We generally need to see the frame to know if we can do a quick repair, whether we need to order in parts or if the glasses are a lost cause.

Before I mention some common breaks and what we can and cannot do about them here are some things we cannot do and some things you shouldn't do.

Things we can't do

Sometimes when a frame breaks people wonder if they can use their same lenses in a new frame. Generally this is a really bad idea. Lenses are set into your frame in a very specific way so that the optical centre of the lens lines up with your pupil. In the process of cutting a lens down and putting it into a new frame this is unlikely to line up properly and will lead to poor vision and eye strain. The frame chosen also needs to be the same size and shape or smaller in order to insert the lenses and this often restricts you to frames that don't actually fit you well. For a progressive (no line bifocal) it's essentially impossible to reuse the lens without cutting off the reading portion and having the lenses sit at the wrong height, angle and distance between the eyes resulting in terrible vision at all distances, distortion and eye strain.

Things you shouldn't do

Never, ever, ever super glue your frame. If you have a warranty on your frame and you use super glue the warranty will be void. Please don't do this. I would much rather you didn't have to pay for your repair and I bet you'd rather not pay either.

Never, EVER use superglue on your glasses. Never.

And now for those common breaks and what we can and cannot do.

The temple or 'arm' of the frame has broken off

If the arm of the glasses has come off it might just be a missing screw. If that's all it is we can fix that very easily for you and at no charge! If it looks like the picture below where the screw is still in place and the metal itself has snapped we would have to order in a new arm to fix it. If the frame is older and has been discontinued then unfortunately there isn't anything we can order. In a case like this we do have special shrink wrap that can be used to solidly hold the arm in place (it's much, much better than tape, I promise) but you won't be able to bend the arm anymore and it will be obvious that there's shrink wrap on your glasses. It's not perfect but it is a solution that allows you to still wear your glasses until you are able to get new glasses.

Sometimes when a temple or 'arm' breaks off it's an easy fix. Sometimes we have to order in a new part. In this picture we would need to get a new part to fix this break.

The arm has snapped in half or the frame has broken in the middle or around the lens

This is a nasty one. If the frame is metal, but not titanium, it can be soldered back together but the break remains a weak point and may break again. If the frame is plastic or titanium there is no way to repair it and a new part needs to be ordered. If the break is right in the middle over the nose we can use shrink wrap to temporarily hold it together but there is a good chance you will look like you starred in the Revenge of the Nerds. If the frame is older it again may have been discontinued and the part may not be available.

This kind of break is the worst and a new part almost always has to be ordered.

The nose pads have broken off or are missing

If the nose pad itself (the clear plastic oval) is missing or has broken off that's an easy repair. We have lots of nose pads and even the tiny nose pad screws in our office so there's no need to suffer by having the metal part dig into your skin. We don't charge for this type of repair so there's no reason not to get it fixed! If the metal part is broken (that's the upside down U shaped part that connects the nose pad to the rest of the frame) it can be soldered if it's metal but not titanium though this is difficult. For most metal frames and all titanium frames a new piece needs to be ordered assuming the frame has not been discontinued.

Nose pads are great at keeping your frames sitting in the right place and staying comfortable... unless they're broken and then it feels like you have a knife stabbing into your nose.

At our office we really, really hate it when a frame breaks and we can't get parts anymore because it's been discontinued. We don't carry discontinued frames and all of our frames come with at least a one year warranty for manufacturer's defects (meaning don't run it over with your car and expect the manufacturer to replace everything at no charge but anything reasonable is covered). It's also important to keep in mind that 'old' is relative. Often a frame that is only 1 or 2 years old is 'old' in the frame world and may have been discontinued (much like if you bought a sweater you really liked and two years later it ripped. If you went to get same sweater there would be a good chance it's not made anymore).

There are going to be situations where you might come in with a frame you bought elsewhere or even one you got from us that cannot be repaired because the parts are no longer made. We will always work with you to find a solution no matter what the situation is and no matter where you bought the frame. We don't want to leave you high and dry (and visually impaired)!

If you have a broken frame and want to know if it can be fixed feel free to bring your frame to us or contact us on Twitter, Facebook, Google +, via our website or phone us at (403) 474-6744.

More questions? Book now and speak with one of our doctors!

Primary Open Angle Glaucoma - the most common type of glaucoma

You may recall from our first blog on glaucoma that this eye problem isn't really just one disease but a whole bunch of different diseases lumped together that have a similar effect on your eyes and vision. That makes it relatively difficult to explain in a non specific way (though I tried in my introduction to glaucoma blog)! To really understand it we have to talk about each type of glaucoma separately. Let's start with one of the most common types of glaucoma: primary open angle glaucoma.

So who gets this type of glaucoma? The short answer is anyone can get open angle glaucoma. Typically your risk is higher if you're of African descent, if you have a high nearsighted prescription or if you have a family member who has glaucoma. Our risk goes up with age too. The thing to take away here is that these factors increase your risk of the disease but you can't say "Gosh, I don't have any of those, I'll never get glaucoma". One person may have a lower risk than another but we all have some risk of developing glaucoma.

Alright, here's a really quick anatomy lesson (with pictures) that is absolutely required to know what's going on in glaucoma. Basically fluid is produced by the ciliary body which you can see in the picture below. That fluid flows up through your pupil and then drains out through the little corner formed between the cornea (front clear part of your eye) and your iris.

This is how an eye without glaucoma produces and drains fluid (known as 'aqueous humour') in the eye.

If you have open angle glaucoma fluid is still produced by the ciliary body and flows up through your pupil but when it goes to drain it doesn't drain as quickly or as well and so the fluid stays in the eye longer. The more fluid that remains in the eye and the slower it drains the higher the pressure in the eye becomes and the greater the chance for damage to the optic nerve and your vision.

If someone develops open angle glaucoma the fluid produced can't drain as quickly and stays in the eye longer increasing the eye pressure which can lead to damage and permanent vision loss.

So why doesn't the fluid drain as well? Good question. If you figure it out let me know and we can alert the Nobel Prize committee together. There are some types of glaucoma where the drainage gets clogged but those are secondary glaucomas (meaning they are caused by another problem like debris or physical damage preventing good fluid drainage) as opposed to primary glaucoma (the fluid isn't draining but there aren't any other diseases happening to blame it on). There are some great theories out there including some that suggest that the very tiny blood vessels that this fluid drains into may collapse or partially collapse leading to a decreased ability to drain fluid away but so far we don't know for sure why primary glaucoma happens.

Regardless of what causes it, glaucoma is treatable. Usually all that is required is one drop of medication once a day to control the pressure. In order to treat the disease and prevent vision loss though you have to know you have glaucoma! The MOST important take away is that primary open angle glaucoma has absolutely no symptoms until it's end stage and vision loss is severe. The only way to diagnose glaucoma and prevent severe vision loss is to have regular eye exams with your optometrist.

If you want to read more feel free to check out the following links or as always you can contact us on Twitter, Facebook, Google +, via our website or phone us at (403) 474-6744.

The CNIB (Canadian National Institute for the Blind) - Glaucoma

The Canadian Association of Optometrists - Glaucoma

The Alberta Association of Optometrists - Glaucoma

The American Optometric Association - Glaucoma

I should see an eye doctor for that? - Something's in my eye

There is a lot of confusion about what optometrists really do. We are so stereotypically associated with asking people "Which is better, 1 or 2?" and correcting vision problems that people are sometimes surprised to hear that we do a lot more! To help with the confusion I decided to start this new blog series "I should see an eye doctor for that?". Some might surprise you, some might not. In this blog let’s go over what to do if there’s something in your eye.

“These types of issue are covered completely by Alberta Health Care.”

Imagine this: You’re working in the shop. A piece of wood or metal gets in your eye. Or maybe you’re out innocently walking on a windy day when out of nowhere something flies into your eye and won’t come out. What do you do? What’s your first instinct? For most people it’s to rub their eyes. Please don’t (if there’s something sharp in there it will just scratch the front of the eye and be even more painful)! You might think to rinse it out with drops, saline, or water and that’s a fair instinct but what if that doesn’t work?

Ouch. If you get something in your eye don’t delay. Be seen by a doctor of optometry as soon as possible!

Ouch. If you get something in your eye don’t delay. Be seen by a doctor of optometry as soon as possible!

“… your doctor of optometry has all the right tools and training and can usually see you right away.”

For many people their next stop is either the emergency room or their family doctor. That’s a fair choice and certainly if something has punctured the eye or there’s extreme bleeding go to the ER. Otherwise your doctor of optometry has all the right tools and training and can usually see you right away.

What do we do? Well, first we numb your eye with a simple eye drop. Then under high magnification we use specialized tools designed specifically for the eye to remove whatever is stuck. Afterwards, if required, we would prescribe an appropriate medication to prevent infection or further injury. It’s as easy as that.

If you're ever concerned about something related to your eyes and you aren't sure if your doctor of optometry is equipped to deal with your problem it's important that you call them and ask. Even if your optometrist isn't able to deal with something he or she can often  put you in touch with the right people, such as the on call ophthalmologist, and get you seen and treated sooner.

These types of issues are covered completely by Alberta Health Care. There is generally no charge to you for this type of visit (this can be up to the doctor's discretion. At Eye Spy Optometry we never charge for this type of visit).

If you have any questions about this or anything else feel free to contact us on Twitter, Facebook, Google +, via our website or phone us at (403) 474-6744.

More questions? Book now and speak with one of our doctors!



Dry eye: the scourge of southern alberta

If you've lived in Calgary for more than a few days you are well aware that we live in an incredibly dry province. While I love chinook winds as much as the next person they definitely dry things out such as your skin, your mouth and of course your eyes. Dry eye feels like it should be a simple thing. Your eyes are dry so you need to add moisture, right?  Unfortunately, dry eye is a complex and multifactorial issue that can be a challenge to deal with.

To understand dry eye you have to understand tears. Our tears are not just water. There are actually three different layers to our tear film! The layer closest to our eye is a mucous layer that helps sweep capture and sweep debris from our eyes. The next layer is the main, watery layer we're all familiar with. Finally the outermost layer is an oily layer that helps keep our tears from evaporating.

The different tear layers on our eyes. All are required in perfect balance to prevent dryness.

All of these different tear layers need to be present and in a proper balance to prevent dryness and irritation. The amount and quality of tears produced can be affected by many things such as certain diseases, increasing age, being female, some medications and of course your environment.

As you can imagine with so many different factors there are many different types of dry eye. The two main types of dry eye occur when either not enough of the outer oily layer is produced so the watery layer evaporates (creatively called evaporative dry eye) or that not enough of the watery middle layer is produced which we call aqueous deficient dry eye.

There are different treatments for different types of dry eye and for different levels of dryness. My job is to figure out which type of dry eye you have and its severity and treat you appropriately. While artificial tears (eye drops) are required in almost all types of dry eye different artificial tears will work better for certain types of dryness than others and often will not be enough to deal with all of your symptoms.

If you are experiencing dry eye I would strongly encourage you to come and have your eyes checked. Chronic dry eye creates a nasty feedback loop causing your eyes to get drier and drier over time unless you intervene.

There is a lot more to know about dry eye. Stay tuned for future blogs about the types of dry eye, what makes it worse and how we treat your eyes.

Want more information about your own dry eye? Try our dry eye questionnaire!

If you want to read more feel free to check out the following links or as always you can contact us on Twitter, Facebook, Google +, via our website or phone us at (403) 474-6744.

American Optometric Association - Dry Eye

Mayo Clinic - Dry Eye

All About Vision - Dry Eye

Amblyopia - How do we treat it?

My last blog about amblyopia discussed what amblyopia is and why it happens. It’s been a while so if you forget what amblyopia was or missed that blog follow the link back and find  out more before reading about how we treat amblyopia.

So what do we do about amblyopia? It’s actually not all that difficult! If there is a large amount of farsightedness or astigmatism our first step is to correct the prescription. A lot of parents get lost about now. We’ve just spent the last several minutes explaining to them that their child can’t see properly even with glasses and now we’re saying that they need glasses to fix the problem. This is especially tricky if there is no change in how well the kid sees without glasses or with!  It’s totally fair to question what we’re doing and why. The idea is to provide the eye (or eyes) with a nice sharp image. It may not make any difference in how well they see at first but over time as the eyes receive a nice sharp image they will learn more and more how to see better. If we go back to our earlier analogy with the flowers it’s sort of like watering the poor neglected flower. Just because you watered it doesn’t mean it instantly comes back to health and looks amazing. It takes care and time to nurse that flower back into full bloom.

If the amblyopia is only in one eye or is strabismic (eye turn) patching an eye is often required. The reason we have to patch in cases where only one eye is affected is  because if we don’t the better eye will just take over and keep doing all the work. This prevents the weaker eye from doing any work and slows or eliminates how well it will improve. The good news is that research has found that patching is NOT required all day every day! In fact it is only required for a few hours each night though we do recommend that the patient does some visually stimulating activities like reading, colouring or even video games.

There are certainly some cases that are more complicated and require more intervention and far more intensive vision therapy. Some patients may eventually require an eye surgery if they have an eye turn but the majority of patients with amblyopia can be easily treated so long as it is detected early. The older we are the harder it is to treat amblyopia as our brains are more set in their ways. So book your kids in for an eye exam today! You may think they see just fine, they may seem to see well but remember amblyopia may only affect one eye and young kids often don’t realize what they aren’t seeing!

If you want to read more feel free to check out the following links or as always you can contact us on Twitter, Facebook, Google +, via our website or phone us at (403) 474-6744.

Doctors of Optometry Canada - Amblyopia

Mayo Clinic - Amblyopia

 

Another contest?

Yes, we are in fact having another contest already. This one is a little different than our ugly glasses contest since you actually have to come and see us for a chance to win the prize. We have this absolutely beautiful work of art from Gregoire Photography (http://ow.ly/BVqZl) in our office and starting October 1 it could be yours. If you make a purchase of glasses or a year supply of contacts between October 1 and December 20 your name will be entered into a draw to win this fantastic photo. Jen Gregoire is a local artist so come support your local, independent optometrist and support a local artist too! http://www.jengregoire.com/

Why do I need a yearly eye exam?

Whenever I meet people and they find out what I do for a living, people who haven’t been to see an optometrist for many years (or who have never been!) often try to rationalize that decision to me.

“No one in my family wears glasses.”
“I can see just fine!”
“If I have a problem seeing then I’ll come in and see you.”

Those objections are so frustrating to a eye health professional! The one thing all of those statements have in common is that the person says that they see just fine so why see an eye doctor? Nobody is thinking about the health of their eye! If you’ve been reading my blog, you already know that there are so many diseases that affect the eye that do not cause vision problems (at least not in the earliest stages). That’s not even mentioning the many diseases that affect your whole body that we can see in the eye. In previous blogs I’ve talked about things like Glaucoma and Macular Degeneration and the importance of early detection and intervention. There are a host of other diseases that can also show up in the eye - things like Diabetes, MS, certain types of cancer , high blood pressure, high cholesterol, rheumatoid arthritis and more.

So how often should you come to see an optometrist? Yearly eye exams are what I always recommend. Why? The reason is that even if your vision hasn’t changed or seems fine we need to keep an eye on your health (pun intended)! A lot of people seem to think yearly eye exams just aren’t that important because they haven’t noticed a problem. When someone tells me that I ask them how their teeth are. Are they still chewing well? Did they still see a dentist this year or even in the last six months? The answer is of course they did! Even if their teeth seem fine they get them checked because there might be a cavity or another issue they weren’t aware of. In surveys, the ability to see consistently ranks among the most highly valued abilities that we have and loss of vision one of the most terrifying disabilities. When you know that most eye disease has no symptoms and you could lose your vision by not having regular eye exams why would you not schedule a yearly check?

We would love to see you at Eye Spy Optometry and we try to make appointments easy. We offer evening, weekend and early morning hours. You can call us at (403) 474-6744 to book an appointment or you can book online here! We try to make ourselves easy to contact and you can reach us on on Twitter, Facebook, Google + or via our website or phone us at (403) 474-6744.

For more information about the importance of yearly eye exams check out these links!

All About Vision - Why Are Eye Exams Important

Doctors of Optometry - The Eye Exam

American Optometric Association - Comprehensive Eye and Vision Examination

Woah... those glasses are ugly!!!

We are having our first ever social media contest and man is it a fun one!

Here's the deal:

Step 1. Pick the ugliest pair of glasses you can find.

Step 2. Share a picture of them with us. For each photo you submit you get entered into a draw! Where do you share them?

• Post a picture to our Facebook page (www.facebook.com/eyespyoptometry)

• Put a photo on Twitter – tag #uglyglasses and @yyc_eyespy

• Tag us on a photo on Instagram – use #uglyglasses and @yyc_eyespy

Each photo you upload gets you one entry. You can only use the same photo once on each website but you can enter as many different photos with different ugly glasses as you like! We must receive all entries by September 21st, 2014 by 11:59 MDT.

Step 3. Win new, non-ugly glasses (frames and lenses) or sunglasses valued at up to $500! (Valid spectacle prescription required if you would like prescription glasses)! On September 25th we will randomly draw the winning entry. Remember, the more photos you post, the more chances to win you have!

Good luck and have fun!

Ebola and the eye

Ebola has been making headlines around the world for weeks now. There’s a lot of fear and a lot of misinformation out there! I’ve spoken with many people and read many articles discussing the fear people have about the possibility of Ebola spreading to Canada. While I’m not an expert on Ebola by any stretch remember that Ebola is relatively difficult to transmit and the world is currently on high alert for anyone showing symptoms. Ebola is only transmitted through contact with infected fluids or tissues. The likelihood of it arriving in Canada is small and the chances of it spreading as it has in West Africa are also vanishingly small. Today’s blog is more for interest than anything else as I strongly doubt any of us reading this will be unlucky enough to ever meet someone suffering from the Ebola virus.

So what exactly does Ebola do to the eyes? In most cases the horrific images you may have seen or heard about with blood pouring from the eyes does not happen. That occurs in only about 20% of cases. While Ebola is certainly a terrible disease the external bleeding we imagine to happen to all Ebola patients again only happens to 20% of those infected. Most patients end up with the eyes being red, much like you would expect in someone with very dry eyes or pink eye. The majority of the ‘bleeding’ that occurs with Ebola is internal and is not actually seen.

Let’s now imagine that you were infected with Ebola but you pulled through. Can you expect any eye problems? Unfortunately yes. People who have survived Ebola are much more likely to get uveitis. Uveitis is perhaps better known as iritis and is an inflammation inside of the eye. People with uveitis have very sore, painful eyes that are sensitive to the light. It also causes blurred vision and if left untreated increases your risk for a variety of complications including blindness. Uveitis, is treatable with anti-inflammatory eye drops (steroids) and if treated early has no serious long term effects. If someone has uveitis it often will happen again in the future. No one knows why uveitis is more common in people who have recovered from Ebola as the disease is really not fully understood.

Ebola is certainly a scary disease and as it spreads in West Africa there has been a lot of panicking in the media. Always try to keep in mind that it is very unlikely to arrive in Canada and that even if it does it is unlikely to spread due to the many different infection control standards we have in this country.

If you do have any questions or concerns always feel free to contact us on Twitter, Facebook, Google + or via our website or phone us at (403) 474-6744.

For more information about Ebola:

The CDC - Ebola

CBC News - Ebola: Surviving Ebola

Huffington Post - Symptoms of Ebola

Amblyopia - An introduction to a common and confusing problem

Let me introduce you to one of the  most commonly misunderstood eye disorders that occurs in children and can continue into adulthood: amblyopia. Why is amblyopia so confusing? The biggest problem is that it’s hard to explain in a way that makes sense to everyone. So let’s hunker down and understand what amblyopia is.

Amblyopia is often also called lazy eye. This is horribly confusing because strabismus (where the eye turns in, out, up or down all or most of the time) is also commonly called a lazy eye. While an eye turn can lead to amblyopia, it doesn’t always and many people have amblyopia without an eye turn. Confused yet? What is amblyopia then? Officially it is decreased vision, even with glasses on, without any other disease or health problem being present. To really understand amblyopia though we need to know where it comes from. Remember that when we are born we don’t see perfectly well! In fact our eyes develop and learn how to see from the time we’re born until we are about eight years old.

There are two types of amblyopia. One type is called refractive  (meaning related to the prescription) the other type is called strabismic (meaning that there is an eye turn). The prescription related type of amblyopia is almost always caused by either very high amounts of farsightedness or very high amounts of astigmatism that have not been corrected with glasses. Sometimes this will happen in only one eye but it will often happen in both. The problem is that if you have a very large amount of farsightedness or astigmatism it’s not possible to see well at any distance.  Strabismic amblyopia occurs when an eye is always turned out or turned in. Since that eye is always off to the side our brain edits out any images from it and it doesn’t get used. This is a great example of use it or lose it! Remember that when we are young our eyes are still learning how to see. If during that time, when we are learning how to see, our eyes never have a clear image (or just isn't used!) we never develop the ability to see as well as we should. To put it another way imagine you had two potted flowers. One flower you diligently watered and fertilized every day but the other flower you more or less ignored. Even if they started out with the same potential the flower that got taken care of would thrive while the other would wither away. Eyes are obviously not exactly the same but an eye that gets daily stimulation with sharp clear images will learn and develop much better than an eye that doesn’t.

So what do we do about it? I'll cover how we treat amblyopia in my next blog! Until then if you want to read more feel free to check out the following links or as always contact us on Twitter, Facebook, Google + or via our website or phone us at (403) 474-6744.

Doctors of Optometry Canada - Amblyopia

Mayo Clinic - Amblyopia

Retinoblastoma - Eye Cancer in Kids

There’s a story that’s been going around on social media about retinoblastoma, a rare but serious eye cancer that affects young children (I reposted it here). I realize that most people have probably never even heard of retinoblastoma and given how serious it is I thought it was worth writing about. It can be treated and, like any cancer, the sooner it’s caught the better the outcome.

So first, what is retinoblastoma? It is a cancer of the retina itself caused by a genetic mutation that can happen all on its own or be inherited. The reason it happens in young kids and not older people is the cells that lead to retinoblastoma are only found in children. They are called retinoblasts and their job is to divide and fill in the retina as the child grows (our eyes aren’t fully developed when we’re born). If they start growing and dividing uncontrollably we end up with a retinoblastoma.

So how do you detect it? The best way is to have regular eye exams. Remember that kids can start getting eye exams as young as 6 months old! You can also detect retinoblastoma yourself as a parent  by watching out for a few key things. If your child’s pupil appears white in photographs,  your child has developed an eye turn (also called a strabismus or lazy eye) or the eye is red and irritated or doesn’t seem to see as well I would strongly advise getting your child seen by your optometrist or family doctor as soon as possible. It is very important to note that most white pupils, eye turns and red, irritated eyes are not cancer. There are a variety of potential causes of these signs, some serious, others less serious and it is the job of your optometrist to  figure it out.

If you see this in a picture of your child you want it's important to have it checked immediately.

If you see this in a picture of your child you want it's important to have it checked immediately.

So what do you do if you do find that your child has retinoblastoma? How can it be treated?Your retinal oncologist (fancy name for an ophthalmologist or eye surgeon that specializes in eye cancer)  will set up a treatment plan depending on the size, type and location of the tumour. The number one priority in all cases of eye cancer is to save the person’s life. Retinoblastoma is fast growing and there is a possibility of it spreading to other parts of the body or into the brain. Saving the eye or the vision is less important than saving the child’s life. Radiation, chemotherapy, cryotherapy and a number of other  common cancer treatments are typically used to start in an effort to reduce the size of the tumour or eliminate it. In some cases it is necessary to remove the eye. Even if they eye itself can be saved it often is not able to see after treatment is completed. Retinoblastoma is never something we want to see but if caught early much can be done to help.

So now you have a better understanding of retinoblastoma. If you have any questions always feel free to contact us on Twitter, Facebook, Google + or via our website or phone us at (403) 474-6744.

For more information follow the links below!

Canadian Cancer Society

Ask a Doctor of Optometry - Retinoblastoma

Part 2: So, eye doctors do exams on babies? How does that even work? Why bother?

In this continuation from Part 1 of our two part blog about children's eye exams we talk more about how our eye work together, eye health and how we check these areas out on young children.

We often don’t think about it, but it’s pretty amazing that we don’t see double all the time. Our eyes have to line up perfectly all the time and work together well to allow us to see properly. It’s perhaps not surprising to hear that sometimes the system breaks down. It’s very obvious when someone has a big eye turn in or out and most parents would notice that. What is trickier is when the eye only turns sometimes, only turns when reading or there’s a muscle problem that doesn’t result in any eye turns at all! Many people have a muscle alignment problem that causes a lot of symptoms  but the eyes themselves don’t actually visibly turn in or out when both eyes are open. For a child trying to learn how to read this is a big deal! Kids may skip words, confuse letters, say letters are moving or have any other number of problems that people think is a learning problem but is actually an eye problem. A simple test to confirm the alignment of the eyes, standard on all eye exams, can help to prevent or solve a whole host of problems.

The thing about eyes is we only get two. It’s important to take care of them right from the start. We encourage our kids to take care of their first set of teeth even though they’re going to get more! We want a dentist to make sure they have healthy mouths. If something goes wrong with our eyes we don’t get to have a replacement! The majority of kids are, again, very healthy. Unfortunately though eye health problems in kids are either extremely serious and require early detection and treatment or are very minor like pink eye that just require drops. Most eye cancer, for example, strikes young kids under the age of five. It’s very rare but very serious.  There are many eye diseases that can affect children and by looking inside the eye and out optometrists can detect them early.

80% of learning is visual. I see so many kids that are being treated for attention problems or are getting special tutoring because they’re falling behind in school but their only problem is that they can’t see or their eyes aren’t working together. I don’t know about you, but I would probably act out too if I couldn’t see what was going on all day! Kids 18 and under are 100% covered by Alberta Health Care so you don’t have to pay a dime! You really don’t have an excuse not to bring your kids in and get them checked!

If you have more questions about this, or any other topic, always feel welcome to contact us on Twitter, Facebook, Google + or via our website.

For more information about children's eye exams check out the links below:

Eye Exams for Infants

Eye Exams for Preschoolers

Eye Exams for School Age Children

Part 1: So, eye doctors do exams on babies? How does that even work? Why bother?

People love their kids, that’s pretty much a given fact. Everyone wants to make sure they do the best they can to help their kids be everything they want to be! You take them in for their shots and check ups, make sure their teeth are healthy with the dentist and keep them busy with sports or music or any number of things! What many parents forget is to have their child’s eyes checked by an Optometrist.

I completely understand how this happens: People don’t think we can do eye exams on young kids; they think that little Timmy sees just fine thank you very much; they just don’t think it’s necessary!  The thing is the consequences of assuming everything is fine can be quite serious. It's much better to check and know everything is fine than to not check and hope for the best.

Optometrists are fully trained to do eye exams on just about anyone including small children. We actually start seeing kids as young as 6 months (and we really only wait that long because the eyes are still learning how to work together properly before then). I know you’re thinking “But, what on earth are you going to do with my 6 month old!” Don’t worry. We don’t require that our patients answer all those questions to get the information we need. Without any questions we can still assess the three major areas all optometrists check: how well the eyes focus, how well the eyes work together and how healthy the eyes are inside and out.

To check how well the eyes focus, especially on kids or people who are non-verbal, optometrists use a tool called a retinoscope. When we shine it back and forth at someone’s eyes we see a light reflex. Depending on how that reflex moves we can tell if someone is near-sighted, far-sighted or has astigmatism. We use lenses to ‘neutralize’ that reflex and that tells us  what the prescription is. We can do this on anyone of any age but it only gives us an estimate of the prescription so we still ask adults all those darn questions. Most kids don’t have a significant prescription, even if they may develop one later in life. Some children though have very extreme prescriptions. If the prescription isn’t corrected it can lead to amblyopia, a condition that prevents someone from having  clear vision even with glasses on.  

A lot of parents assume that if their child hasn’t complained they must not have a problem. This isn’t accurate for a couple reasons. If only one eye is affected your little guy can see just fine… it’s just only out of one eye. Since most kids don’t walk around with one eye closed they don’t usually notice the problem! The other issue is that kids don’t really know what they should be seeing, especially when they’re very young. If both eyes are affected he or she may not realize there’s a problem and assume that this is just how everyone sees. It’s not until they’re much older, 7 or 8, that they start to realize something isn’t quite right at which point it’s almost too late to treat.

Our next blog will continue to explore kids eye exams and talk a bit more about how our eyes work together, eye health and how we check those out on young kids.

If you have more questions about this, or any other topic, always feel welcome to contact us on Twitter, Facebook, Google + or via our website.

For more information about children's eye exams check out the links below:

Eye Exams for Infants

Eye Exams for Preschoolers

Eye Exams for School Age Children
 

UV and you: Why sunscreen isn’t all you need to protect yourself from the sun

Everyone knows how important it is to wear sunscreen, especially if you’re going to be spending the day outside. Sunscreen has become a part of many of our daily routines and is in most skin creams. Enjoying our short summers here in Calgary usually means spending as much time as possible outside while the weather is nice and we all know we need to wear sunscreen when we’re outside all day. Protecting your eyes from the sun though is just as important.

In my last blog I talked about cataracts and how UV light increases your risk of getting cataracts sooner. Several blogs ago I talked about macular degeneration and how one of the main preventable risk factors in the disease is exposure to UV light! If you’ve been reading my blogs you already know how important protecting your eyes from the sun is. UV light also increases your risk of certain eye and eyelid cancers as well as wrinkles, lumpy fleshy elevations on the white of your eye called pingueculae or even fleshy growths over the clear part of your eye called pterygia!

So I’ve convinced you how important sun protection is (I hope!) and you get it now. Even though sun protection is really important did you know that almost one third of people don’t wear sunglasses at all? When we talk about kids that number increases to almost 50%! While it is definitely important for people of all ages to wear sun protection it is extra important for kids. A combination of very large pupils, a more transparent lens inside of their eye that allows far more UV to penetrate inside and spending more time outside than most adults leads to 80% of lifetime UV exposure to the eye to happen before the age of 18!

UV light is sneaky and may be getting to your skin and your eyes in situations you might not expect such as underwater, on cloudy days or getting a double dose from light reflected off of snow or water!

All sunglasses are the same though, right? Wrong. Not all sunglasses block all UV light rays. All sunglasses sold in Canada have some degree of UV protection but not all block 99% of UVB rays which is what is recommended to best protect your eyes! If you have sunglasses and want to know how much UV they block feel free to bring them in to our office and we can measure how much UV is blocked at no cost to you.

So you’re saying to yourself alright, I get it, I need to wear good sunglasses: I have more news. Sunglasses are often not enough. Even nice big sunglasses still let some light in around the edges and especially some of the extremely cool aviator frames are flat (they don't 'wrap' around your face) and don’t offer much protection from the side. You have some options to help protect yourself further. A good hat with a wide brim helps prevent as much sunlight from getting around your sunglasses. Another option though is to wear contacts!

I know you’re wondering how on Earth contact lenses could help. It’s a fair question since most do not. All contact lenses offered by Acuvue though have some degree of UV protection. They have many that will block over 99% of UVB!  This is a great option for protecting your eyes from the sun and at Eye Spy Optometry we carry a wide variety of Acuvue products.

So which is best? Sunglasses? A hat? UV blocking contact lenses? The answer is all of them together. All these options will work together to give you comprehensive UV protection for your eyes. It’s important to remember as well that UV exposure doesn’t decrease  very much on cloudy days, under water, in the winter or at dawn or dusk. If you think you only need sun protection from 10:00am-4:00pm on sunny days in the summer you’re going to still get a heavy dose of UV the rest of the time! Think about all those times on the ski hill when you’ve ended up with a burn on the few exposed areas of skin you had.

Remember to protect your eyes, protect your skin and protect your health with as many UV blocking options as you can find. Your body will thank you for it!

If you have more questions about this or anything else always feel free to contact us on Twitter, Facebook, Google + or via our website. For more information feel free to follow the links below:

The Vision Care Institute

Doctors of Optometry Canada - Risks Associated with Sun Exposure

Doctors of Optometry Canada - Children and Risks Associated with Sun Exposure

Cataracts: They're not what you might think they are!

Often when I talk with my patients about cataracts they’re very unclear about what a cataract really is! Lots of people seem to think it’s something affecting the front of the eye and can be peeled off. Others think it can just be lasered off. Others think cataracts only happen in older people. None of these things are strictly true. Cataracts are one of the most common eye disorders in the world and so of course lots of myths have sprung up around them. Let’s figure out what cataracts are, who they affect and what you can do to prevent or treat them.

To fully understand cataracts you need to know a very little bit about the anatomy of the eye. The biggest thing to absorb here is that the pupil, the dark central part of your eye, is not an actual thing. The pupil is actually nothing! It’s just a hole. Behind that hole though is a very cool structure called the crystalline lens. The lens in your eye not only provides some of the focusing ability of your eye so you can see far away it also flexes and changes shape to allow you to see clearly when you look at things that are close to you as well. Overtime that lens can become cloudy. This prevents as much light from getting to your retina and also causes light to scatter. This leads to a combination of blurred vision and night glare. This is a cataract.

This is an example of an extremely dense cataract. They almost never get this bad in Canada as people usually seek treatment before their vision is this bad.

So now that we know what a cataract is, what causes it? There are actually a lot of different causes so today I’ll go over just a few. One of the most important causes of cataracts is exposure to UV light. Over the long term UV light causes the lens inside of our eye to cloud up. Your best protection against this is to wear sunglasses as much as possible when outside, even on cloudy days or as the sun is going up or down. Many people think there is a much lower risk of UV exposure when it’s cloudy or during sunrise or sunset but while the UV exposure is somewhat reduced UV is still getting through to your eyes and skin.

An impact or other types of injury (such as electric shock) can also cause cataracts in otherwise young and healthy people. The trauma to the eye and to the lens can cause the lens itself to rupture or crack. These cracks allow fluid to enter into the rigidly organized lens and allows a cataract to form. The most obvious way to prevent this is to protect yourself against injury! Wear safety glasses if you’re doing work where something might hit you in the eye and definitely while participating in sports like squash that carry a high risk of getting hit in the eye.

The last type of cataract I’ll go over today is congenital. Congenital is fancy word for ‘you’re born with it’. Roughly ⅓ of congenital cataracts are genetic, ⅓  are caused by a disorder or disease and ⅓ are idiopathic… another fancy word that means we don’t really know where they come from. Hospitals do typically check newborns to make sure they don’t have an obvious or significant congenital cataract that requires treatment . That said I have a lot of patients that have minor congenital cataracts that aren’t really an issue but they had no idea were there.

So cataracts are inside the eye and are the clouding of the lens behind our pupil. They can affect anyone from newborns to seniors depending on a lot of different factors. These facts probably fly in the face of what you thought cataracts really were! The good news is that cataracts can be easily removed with a relatively quick and easy surgery. That’s a topic for another blog though! For now, if you have any questions you can always contact us on Twitter, Facebook, Google + or via our website. For more information check out the following links.

Doctors of Optometry Canada - Cataracts

CNIB - Cataracts