Gerhard Meyer-Schwickerath was a German ophthalmologist. In 1949, he used light coagulation to operate on a human eye. How did he do this? He placed a telescope on the roof of the surgery building. The telescope focused sunlight, and the focused light that came out of the telescope was then redirected using a series of…

I often hear a question after cataract surgery: can I wear my old glasses? When the question is asked, I start looking through what the patient should be seeing after surgery through their pre-op glasses and what that entails…. …but I am missing the main purpose of the question. What patients often mean with that…

In cataract surgery today, stitches are rarely used. “What??? How is my eye supposed to stay intact after surgery when there are no stitches???” The method of creating incisions that most surgeons use involves creating a self-sealing angled incision. The incision is essentially square in ideal formation, being as long tunneling through the tissue as…

Today, my 6 year old daughter was running around and talking about the “greasy eyes” of one of her toys. Then I thought… can people have “greasy eyes”? Well, it may not be an exactly apt description, but many people have meibomian gland dysfunction. The meibomian glands are oil glands that are located at the…

There is a very characteristic association between a particular type of brain tumor and a particular type of vision loss. There are brain tumors that can form at the “bottom” of the brain in the pituitary gland area. When these grow, they push on the neurons of the optic nerves as they travel back to…

I recently heard about a report of a person who had 27 contact lenses in one eye! Holy crow! Some patients have eyelid anatomy that facilitates the retention of things like contact lenses. The fornix of the eyelid is where the eyelid is attached to the eyeball as the conjunctiva, the skin of the eyelid,…

This week, a relative of mine had a stye. So, that led me to contemplate: what do I tell my family and friends about styes? In ophthalmology, we agree that styes are blocked oil glands at the edge of the eyelid. Due to the blockage, the contents build up and inflammation results. Here are my…

Lately, I have been hearing more and more patients ask about Demodex mite infestation. Demodex mites can live in the eyelashes, and when they do, they can cause inflammation of the eyelids. Inflammation of the eyelids can cause many different symptoms, including tearing, itching, pain, scratchy feelings, burning, and blurred vision. I think that the…

Sometimes, people wonder how we give glasses to really small children. I mean, they can’t even talk, how do you figure out what glasses to give them?? There is a technique called retinoscopy, in which we use a light and lenses to figure out the prescription of a patient without the need for the patient…

Patients sometimes come in startled with a bright red eye! When the white part of the eye has a large blood-red patch on it, we are likely to call it a subconjunctival hemorrhage. A subconjunctival hemorrhage can look scary, but it’s usually harmless. I often see patients alarmed by the bright red area. A subconjunctival…