Festival on Main Street!

This Friday (August 26th) at the Festival on Main, don't forget to stop by and spin our wheel! We have tons of goodies to give away, including Rayban Wayfarers, Oliver Peoples Sunnies, Kate Spade Sunnies, Oakley t-shirts, Oakley water bottles, a Bebe watch, and much more! We will have an educational activity for the kids as well. Our booth will be on 6th and Main, across from Dairy Queen. Look for the Oakley tent! :)

Did you know that Sight Eyecare used to be a Dry Cleaners?

This is what Sight Eyecare looked like one year ago, right before our office construction started. We are coming up on our one-year anniversary this Fall! Keep you eyes and ears posted, as we plan to have a huge party and Rayban/Coach Eyewear trunk show this Fall to celebrate one year in business! We will provide you with more details on this later!

Back to school checklist: crayons, pencils, binders, EYE EXAM! ;)

Happy first day back to school to all the St. Vrain kiddos out there! If you were not able to bring your child in for his/her eye exam before school started, don't worry! We are open until 7:00 PM on Tuesdays and until 6:00 Wed-Fri, so there is plenty of time to get your child in after school gets out! Saturday appointments are available by special request. As a reminder, we do accept most insurance, including VSP and Eyemed. Happy back to school week! :)

The real reason pirates wore eye patches. You may be surprised!

I'd like to take a moment to talk about pirates. Bear with me...it is interesting! Most people think pirates wore an eye patch to cover a missing or wounded eye. However, the real reason was to condition themselves to be able to fight in the dark. You see, it takes a human eye about 20 minutes to fully adapt from bright sunlight to seeing in complete darkness. At times, a pirate would be fighting on deck in bright sunlight, then have to go under the deck where it is very dark to fight. Imagine going 20 minutes without good vision during battle! The eye patch therefore was used to prepare one eye to see in the dark, so when the pirate would go below deck they could swap the eye patch from one eye to the other, and then be able to see with the eye that had already adjusted to low light conditions. Rather smart!

Are school vision screenings good enough?

The screenings that are done at schools or at the pediatrician's office are usually very basic, and a lot of the essential tests that an optometrist performs are not done during a screening. Without any assessment of ocular alignment, binocular function, accommodation and convergence, these screenings are providing no info as to how a child is performing with reading and tracking. I have seen children "pass" their school screening, but fail their comprehensive eye exam. And vice versa. One of my favorite things about being an optometrist is pediatrics, as it is incredible how much a child's academics, attention, and headaches can start to improve once the proper glasses Rx is prescribed, if necessary.

"Why do I need to have a contact lens exam EVERY year?"

Great question! The short answer is because I need to make sure your eyes are still healthy enough to continue to wear contact lenses, and that you are okay to stay with the brand/material/base curve you're in currently. Now, time for my long answer! :) There are several things that can go wrong when wearing contact lenses, with one of the more common being that your eyes could be starving for oxygen with your current contact lenses, and you wouldn't even know it. You see, the cornea is the only tissue in the body that does not contain blood vessels. Well, at least it's not supposed to contain blood vessels. If a person regularly sleeps in his/her contact lenses or always pushes his/her monthly contacts to two months of wear time, the cornea will eventually start starving for oxygen. To cope with this, the body sends blood vessels to the cornea so that oxygen can be pushed that way. If this continues for a long time, scarring and permanent vision loss can result. These blood vessels, in their early stages, can only be viewed with a microscope and there would actually be no symptoms. This can also occur if a contact lens is fitting too tight or if a person is in a very old, non-breathable material. Unfortunately, I see this almost every week. Fortunately, though, with a change in habits or change in contact lens brand, this vessel formation can be reversed. There are other things that need to be checked for every year as well on contact lens patients, including a check for corneal infiltrates and a check for giant papillary conjunctivitis. I won't go into details on these 2 diagnoses in this blog, but let's just say that if these things were to occur, they could lead to potential problems as well, and need to be treated right away. So, please, don't try to save money by letting your 6 month supply of contact lenses last for an entire year! And take them out at night!
 

"I was never able to adapt to my progressive lenses that I got online for $100." Of course not!

Have you ever had progressive lenses ("no-line trifocals") in the past and just could not get used to them? Think you are stuck wearing lined bifocals or stuck wearing 2-3 separate pairs of glasses for different needs? We may be able to help! Believe it or not, there are actually hundreds of different brands/types of progressive lenses. Recent technology has brought about the advent of "digital" progressives, which give you the sharpest, most natural vision possible at distance, computer, and near. The cheapest progressives on the market (commonly found at places that offer "2 pairs of glasses for $99") are not digitally surfaced, may cause even more eyestrain than you had before, and will not give you as wide a range of peripheral vision through the lens. You DO get what you pay for when it comes to your eyeglasses!