Why do I get eye allergies in the Spring or Fall?

Dr. Nick Feucht

It’s Springtime! The winter is slowly going away. The weather is starting to warm up outside. The flowers are beginning to bloom and that means lots of pollen is in the air. While this can be a wonderful thing to behold, it also means it’s allergy season.

Allergies mean, that in addition to that runny or stuffy nose, you may start to feel redness or itchiness in the eyes. Our Randolph eye doctors call this allergic conjunctivitis but more simply put, you have eye allergies. The immune system is being sensitized to the pollen, dust or other allergens in the air. The eyes become inflamed and start to feel uncomfortable.

There are two types of eye allergies, seasonal and chronic. Seasonal is the more common type and what you are now feeling with spring in the air. Chronic, though less common, continue continuously throughout the year due to dust or other allergens present year round.

What can I do to deal with my eye allergies?

The effect allergies have on your eyes can range from slightly annoying to painful. Knowing how to cope with them can improve quality of life. Tips include

• Try to stay indoors when the pollen count is high, especially in the morning or evening
• Remove rugs that tend to gather dust as hard floors will collect less dust
• Clean and dust the house frequently
• Clean the filter on your air conditioning
• Wash dirty clothes to get rid of dirt and dust
• Remove mold found in and around the home

Often, these tips aren’t enough. At that point, we would suggest various artificial tears and eye drops that can be bought over the counter. If the pain is extreme, we may even prescribe prescription drugs.

While eye allergies may be an unavoidable outcome of the wonderful spring or fall weather, with some of these tips, you can begin to alleviate the pain. Call us to discuss all the options we offer for dealing with eye allergies.

90%! That’s the number of sports eye injuries that studies show can be prevented using proper eye protection.  Yet most sports leagues don’t require protective eyewear as part of their uniform or safety requirements.  This leaves it up to athletes, parents and coaches to ensure that proper measures are taken to keep eyes safe during athletic play.

Protective sports eyewear can come in a number of forms depending on the sport, and includes sports glasses or goggles, eye shields and eye guards.  Regular prescription eyeglasses or sunglasses do not protect the eyes and can sometimes cause greater injury if impact is made and lenses or frames are shattered or broken. If you do wear prescription eyewear, there are a number of options including wearing contact lenses with safety eyewear, purchasing prescription safety eyewear or wearing safety goggles over your regular prescription glasses.   

What Makes Safety Eyewear Safer?

Protective eyewear is made of impact resistant lenses from materials such as polycarbonate or trivex, which are much stronger than other types of plastic used to make typical eyewear lenses.  Polycarbonate has a long history of safety eyewear use in adults and children and Trivex is a newer optical material that is lighter than polycarbonate and offers better optical quality.  Both materials have built in ultraviolet protection to protect your eyes from damage from the sun.

Sports frames are also made from strong, impact-resistant materials such as strong plastics or polycarbonates.  They tend to cover larger areas than traditional glasses to protect more of the area around the eye and block dust, sunlight and other elements from entering from the sides or top of the frame. Sports glasses and goggles usually incorporate impact resistant padding to create a cushion between the frame and the face or nose for increased comfort, impact absorption and to prevent slipping.

Some goggles do not fit well under helmets, such as those used in football and lacrosse, so it is wise for athletes to bring in their helmets when shopping for sports eyewear to ensure they fit under the helmet properly.

Although athletes often shy away from wearing sports eyewear due to concerns of reduced performance, in reality they often can improve performance with new innovations in sportswear that offer improved peripheral vision.

Common Sports Eye Injuries

Eye injuries commonly occur in baseball, basketball, racquetball, tennis, badminton, and other sports.  Here are some of the common types of injuries.

• Scratched eye or corneal abrasion – This is when damage occurs to the external surface of the eye and commonly occur from being poked, scratched or rubbed when there is a foreign body present on the surface such as sand or dust.  Corneal abrasions can be very painful, cause redness and sensitivity, particularly to light. Scratched eyes should be treated immediately by a doctor because bacteria can enter through the eye causing serious infections, that can even lead to blindness.
• Blunt trauma/swelling – is when an object, such as a ball or an elbow impact the eye causing swelling or bleeding such as a black eye (in which the eyelids bruise and swell) or a subconjunctival hemorrhage (bleeding from a blood vessel between the white of the eye and the clear conjunctiva). Black eyes may not appear serious but they should be checked out by a doctor to make sure there is no internal damage.
• Traumatic iritis – an inflammation that occurs following an eye injury such as a blunt trauma that affects the color part of the eye that surrounds the pupil. The inflammation should be treated to ensure there is no permanent vision loss.  
• Penetrating injury – injuries that occur when a foreign object enters the eye, causing the eye to rupture, can cause severe damage, swelling and bleeding.  These should be considered a medical emergency and treated immediately.

As you can see, most of these injuries can be prevented simply by wearing proper protection over the eye.  Your vision is essential for playing the sports you love, so don’t put it as risk by failing to protect your eyes properly. With the increasing selection of frames and lenses for safety and sports eyewear at affordable pricing, an active lifestyle can also be safe.   

We have all seen the futuristic thrillers that use high-tech eye scanning identification systems but nowadays the technology does exist to use them in real life. A greater number of high security establishments have begun to use iris recognition for identification and security systems.  

How does it work?

The iris is the colored part of the eye that forms a ring around the black pupil that is responsible for contractions of the pupil to let in more or less light.  It is also the only internal organ that is visible from outside the body.  Like a fingerprint, the colors and patterns of the iris are completely unique to each individual, and this unique texture usually doesn’t change throughout a person’s lifetime. Because of these characteristics a scan of the iris is a highly reliable source of personal identification.

Iris recognition measures these unique patterns and textures through a specialized camera which captures an image of the iris from about 3-10 inches away.  Iris recognition is considered one of the most accurate forms of biometrics (the use of body measurements for identity checks) because it is non-intrusive, fast and accurate.  As a comparison, while fingerprint identification uses 40 unique characteristics, the iris has 256 unique markers.

In order for iris recognition to work, your iris first needs to be scanned and enrolled into the system so it can recognize your identity. Enrollment requires your eyes to be photographed using both ordinary and infrared light which helps to highlight the unique patterns present in the iris. These digital photographs then go through a specialized analysis that identifies the unique features (the 256 markers mentioned above) and then stores the information as a 512-digit number (your IrisCode®) along with your name and personal details into a database.  This all happens within a few minutes.

Once you are in the system, you simply need to stand in front of the iris scanner and within minutes your iris can be verified.

Limitations of Iris Scanning

The markers on your iris usually remain unchanged throughout your lifetime except in cases of extreme injury to the eye, inflammation (such as iritis) or changes due to cancers. Additionally, certain surgeries for glaucoma involve removing part of the iris (iridectomy) or using lasers to put holes in the iris (iridotomy) which would also change the iris pattern. Lastly, certain tinted contact lenses could be a complication with iris scans because some of them have an artificial iris pattern imprinted on them. Nevertheless, iris scanning is still considered to be the most accurate and effective form of biometric identification.  

 

Iris scanning is already being used in airports, military and prison institutions, high security government and corporate institutions and even at ATM and bank tellers.  Looking into the future, it is likely we will see much more of this technology in common use.

There have been a lot of videos going viral lately of color blind people “seeing color” for the first time using specialized glasses. The emotional reactions of amazement, shock and joy even lead some to break down into tears. The glasses provide these individuals a way to view the world in vibrant, living color, as everyone else around them is able to.

One in every 12 men and one in every 200 women have some degree of color blindness or color vision deficiency (CVD). The condition is not actual blindness, but an inability or a decreased ability to see color and perceive differences in color. CVD can be a partial or total deficiency, although total color blindness is not as common. There are two main types of color blindness:

• red-green – which is most often inherited from the mother’s side on the x chromosome, and

• blue-yellow – which is much more rare and usually occurs from damage to the nerve. CVD can sometimes be acquired through disease, brain injury or certain drugs or chemical reactions

The World of the Color Blind

Contrary to common misconceptions, a person who is color blind does not see only grey.  He still usually sees color to some extent, but often the colors appear dull or washed out and can be easily confused with other colors. People often have trouble identifying or naming certain colors or distinguishing colors, for example, red and green, as well as orange, yellow and brown may appear similar, particular in low light situations. In fact, while people with normal color vision typically see about one million unique shades of color, individuals with color deficiency are only able to perceive 5-10% of that.

People with color deficiency often do not know they are color blind until they are tested. They assume everyone else perceives colors the same way. Often individuals are tested when they are seeking out certain career paths in which it is essential to distinguish colors such as pilots, electricians or police officers among others.  

Innovations in Color Vision

Color blindness can impair certain aspects of daily life and limit certain activities or job options and therefore there are a number of companies out there working on technology to overcome these difficulties. While there is no cure for CVD, there are aids available that can sometimes assist with increased color perception.  

Eyeglasses/Sunglasses

There are a couple of brands of color enhancing glasses available that help some individuals with red-green colorblindness.

Both EnChroma and o2Amp Oxy-Iso Color Correction Glasses work for about 80% of people with red-green colorblindness – which means that not everyone will have the same experience as those that appear in the videos. The lenses enhance color perception by filtering out the light into different spectral components. EnChroma has two versions – indoor, designed for looking at computer screens and outdoor, sunglasses.  

Another solution is a custom designed ColorCorrection System in which contact lenses and glasses are customized for the individual and are available with or without a prescription. These lenses work by changing the wavelength of the colors as they enter the eye to enhance color discrimination and perception.

Apps for CVD

There are a growing number of apps available for smartphones and tablets that serve as color vision aids for those with CVD.  One example is the Colorblind Avenger which is a color identification program will allows the person to use their mobile device as a visual aid. The user takes a photo or selects an existing photo and when he touches an area on the image the app displays the color of the selected area.

Huevue is another app of colorblind tools that help people with CVD identify, match and coordinate colors. There are many other apps available out there to help aid those with CVD and educate others about living with the condition.

There are even video games and software design tools that are now created with colorblind modes to allow use by people with CVD. While none of these tools and aids are able to restore color vision permanently, they do allow those with the condition to live a more vibrant life.

Conjunctivitis, also called pink eye, is one of the most frequently seen eye diseases, especially in kids. It can be caused by viruses, bacteria or even allergies to pollen, chlorine in swimming pools, and ingredients in cosmetics, or other irritants, which touch the eyes. Some forms of conjunctivitis might be quite transmittable and quickly spread in school and at the office.

Conjunctivitis is seen when the conjunctiva, or thin transparent layer of tissue covering the white part of the eye, becomes inflamed. You can identify conjunctivitis if you notice eye redness, discharge, itching or swollen eyelids and a crusty discharge surrounding the eyes early in the day. Pink eye infections can be divided into three main types: viral, allergic and bacterial conjunctivitis.

The viral type is usually a result of a similar virus to that which produces the recognizable red, watery eyes, sore throat and runny nose of the common cold. The red, itchy, watery eyes caused by viral pink eye are likely to last from a week to two and then will clear up on their own. You may however, be able to reduce some of the discomfort by using soothing drops or compresses. Viral pink eye is transmittable until it is completely cleared up, so in the meantime maintain excellent hygiene, remove eye discharge and try to avoid using communal pillowcases or towels. If your son or daughter has viral conjunctivitis, he or she will have to be kept home from school for three days to a week until symptoms disappear.

A bacterial infection such as Staphylococcus or Streptococcus is usually treated with antibiotic eye drops or cream. One should notice an improvement within just a few days of antibiotic drops, but be sure to adhere to the full prescription dosage to prevent pink eye from recurring.

Allergic pink eye is not contagious. It is usually a result of a known allergy such as hay fever or pet allergies that sets off an allergic reaction in their eyes. First of all, to treat allergic pink eye, you should eliminate the irritant. Use cool compresses and artificial tears to relieve discomfort in mild cases. When the infection is more severe, your eye doctor might prescribe a medication such as an anti-inflammatory or antihistamine. In cases of chronic allergic pink eye, topical steroid eye drops could be used.

Pink eye should always be diagnosed by a qualified eye doctor in order to identify the type and best course of treatment. Never treat yourself! Keep in mind the sooner you begin treatment, the lower chance you have of giving pink eye to loved ones or prolonging your discomfort.

 

We invite you to take a look around our new site to get to know our practice and learn about eye and vision health. You will find a wealth of information about our optometrists, our staff and our services, as well as facts and advice about how to take care of your eyes and protect your vision.

Learn about our Practice specialties including comprehensive eye exams, contact lens fittings and the treatment of eye diseases. Our website also offers you a convenient way to find our hours, address and map, schedule an appointment online, order contact lenses or contact us to ask us any questions you have about eye care and our Practice.

Have a look around our online office and schedule a visit to meet us in person. We are here to partner with you and your family for a lifetime of healthy eyes and vision. We look forward to seeing you!

Whether it is the sea, the sand, the sun or the softball field, summer brings people outside and this creates exposure to a multitude of potential dangers to the eyes. 

One risk that is possibly the least obvious is the swimming pool. Swimming pools are the culprit for multitudes of eye infections, irritations and sunburns each year.  

Here are 3 tips for keeping your eyes safe in and around the swimming pool.

1. Cover Your Eyes Poolside

   Sunlight reflects off water, sand and even cement, increasing exposure. Any time you are in the vicinity of a water source keep your eyes covered with 100% UV blocking sunglasses and a wide brimmed hat. Start this habit early. UV radiation builds up over your lifetime and has been linked to eye diseases such as cataracts and macular-degeneration in adults. Additionally, even short amounts of exposure to intense sunlight can lead to a sunburn of the eye or photokeratitis (see below for treatment), which can be painful and affect vision temporarily. 

2. Remove or Protect Contact Lenses

   Contact lenses can trap bacteria and microscopic organisms found in water inside your eye resulting in eye infections and irritation. Further, if contacts are worn underwater, they might fall off if you open your eyes. Lastly, there is risk that chlorine or other contaminants will bind onto the contact lens, and certain chemicals cannot be cleaned off or disinfected properly. The best solution is to wear non-prescription swimming goggles over your lenses to keep water and harmful organisms out of your eyes. Prescription goggles are also available for those who prefer to remove their contacts. If you must swim with contact lenses, remove them immediately after you leave the pool and discard or disinfect them thoroughly. It’s preferable to use 1-day disposable contact lenses during water activities, to reduce risk of water contaminating the contacts. Daily disposable lenses allow you to discard the lenses immediately after leaving the water and to start with a fresh lens.

3. Wear Goggles

   Swimming goggles are a good idea even for those who have no vision problems. They protect your eyes from the organisms in the water and from chemical irritants such as chlorine and yes, even urine, which are often found in pools. Your eyes will feel much better after swimming if they haven’t been exposed to the water. 

How to Treat Sunburned Eyes:

The cornea at the front of the eye can develop a sunburn from extensive exposure to UV radiation. You can tell you have sunburned eyes when the white of the eye becomes bloodshot and your eyes are sensitive to light and have a gritty feeling (like there is sand in your eye). They may also become sore and sometimes you may experience blurred vision.

If you are experiencing discomfort it may help to soothe your eyes with lubricating eye drops, to rest and to stay out of sunlight as much as possible. Sometimes anti-inflammatory eye drops may be required. Usually the symptoms will resolve themselves within a couple of days. If your symptoms persist longer than two days or worsen, visit your eye doctor immediately. 

Avoid eye sunburns and the cumulative effects of the sun on your precious eyes by always wearing 100% UV blocking sunglasses – rain or shine!

After the age of 50 most people will eventually be diagnosed with cataracts. Cataracts are when the natural crystalline lens of the eyes become clouded, causing vision impairment that can not be corrected by glasses or contact lenses. While commonly an age-related condition, occasionally there are infants born with a congenital cataract, and it’s possible for young people to develop a cataract related to trauma, injury or infection.

Cataracts are one of the leading causes of visual impairment and the leading cause of blindness worldwide. As of 2010 they were responsible for 51% of world blindness and as life expectancy continues to grow, so does the incidence of cataracts. The condition can be cured by surgical removal of the cataract, which is one of the most common surgeries performed in the United States and Canada.

Cataract surgery involves removing the clouded natural crystalline lens of the eye and replacing it with a clear intraocular lens (IOL).  It is typically an outpatient procedure which does not require an overnight stay. Cataract surgery is one of the safest and most effective surgeries performed in North America today, having a 90% success rate (patient has improved vision, between 20/20 and 20/40 following the procedure).  

Implants (IOLs)

In this day and age, there are several types of implants available. Traditionally, implants have been single vision where the patient’s new lenses are optimally focused for distance vision in both eyes. This usually necessitates the use of reading glasses after the surgery. Implants can also be done in what is called monovision, in which one eye is focused for distance and the other focused for reading. People that have previously used monovision contact lenses are usually able to tolerate this with surgery as well. Recently, there have been many advances in the use of bifocal and multifocal implants. Like glasses, these implants try to give a patient vision at all distances without having to use glasses. Your eye doctor can counsel you on the best option based on your history and prescription. No matter which correction type is chosen for cataract surgery, since presbyopia continues to worsen with age, eventually most patients do require reading glasses again.

Before the Surgery

Cataract surgery is not for everyone. Your eye doctor may advise that your cataracts (and therefore vision) are not bad enough yet to necessitate treatment.  Additionally there may be other risk factors or issues with the health of your eyes that could contraindicate the option of surgery.  

A comprehensive eye exam will be performed to check your overall eye health and your vision.  During the pre-surgery exam, measurements will be taken of your cornea and your eye as well, to help fit the right intraocular lens for your eye and vision needs. You will also be asked to go over a brief medical history including any medications (including over the counter medications) and supplements that you take to ensure the success of the surgery. For example, some medications, such as Flomax, can can affect the iris causing floppy iris syndrome, which creates a challenge for the cataract surgeon.

During the Surgery

The entire procedure from start (pupil dilation and administration of local anesthetics and sometimes a sedative to relax) to finish (post-operative evaluation and discharge) will probably take about an hour to an hour and a half. Nevertheless the actual surgery – removing the clouded lens and replacing it with the IOL – typically takes only about 15 minutes.  You will not feel or see the IOL after the implant.

There are lasers that are sometimes used to assist with cataract surgery, creating precise incisions. However a skilled cataract surgeon is still required for the procedure.

Post-surgery

You will not be able to drive home from the procedure and shouldn’t drive until you have been given approval by your eye doctor after a follow-up exam the next day. You will be required to take medicated eye drops for a number of weeks following the surgery to prevent infection, control eye pressure and reduce inflammation. It is important to take the eye drops as directed by your doctor to avoid complications.  

You will also need to protect your eyes from bright light with sunglasses and to wear a protective shield at certain times, such as when you are sleeping. It is advised to avoid strenuous activity, swimming or any other activities that would put your eyes at risk of getting dirty or infected for at least a week following the procedure.

Vision will usually begin to improve within a few days of the procedure. You may however experience some blurred vision or redness for a number of days or weeks during the healing process. It is normal to feel some initial discomfort or itchiness in the days following the surgery. If you have cataracts in both eyes, your doctor will probably schedule a second surgery a month or two after the first to allow your eye to heal properly before undergoing the second procedure.

If you experience any serious symptoms such as loss of vision, persistent pain or redness, flashes or floaters or nausea contact your doctor immediately.

The majority of patients will still need eyeglasses at least sometimes following the surgery so once your eyes have healed your doctor will fit you for a prescription. Secondary cataract can occur months or years after the initial cataract surgery. This is when an opacity develops behind the IOL and can mimic cataract symptoms. Regular checkups with your optometrist can detect this, and arrangements for a simpler laser treatment instead of surgery can resolve this problem.