I think that I have discussed this before, but it bears discussion again since a young patient of mine really noticed it this week. The patient in question is younger than 10 years old, which may give insight into his reaction. As I was examining him, he noticed that I was putting on an indirect…

I recently heard about a patient who felt that she was so sensitive to eye drops that she refused to take any, even after she had cataract surgery. Not only did she have a surgery that required post-operative drops, but she had a post-operative issue that necessitated more eye drops. Still, she felt she was…

Sometimes, I tell my patients who are feeling totally fine that they may end up with a big problem. “You will be in the emergency room, likely with blurred vision, a red eye, and throwing up.” This may sound pretty scary, but these are often the symptoms of an attack of angle closure glaucoma. When…

There is a medicine called dupilumab (sold under the brand name Dupixent). It is used to treat allergic diseases, and it is a relatively new medication. One of the side effects of this medicine can be inflammation of the conjunctiva, which can be thought of as the “skin” over the white part of the eye.…

Recently, I heard the story of a patient. He has been happy with the outcome of his cataract surgery for years, but he has now seen someone else who got a special lens implant with their cataract surgery. He is envious of that outcome, and he is wondering if he can get his implant “swapped…

When asked about their history of eye problems, many people tell me they have “a stigmatism in [their] eye.” What is that? Actually, astigmatism is a single word that indicates that the corneal curvature is not perfectly symmetric and smooth. The cornea is the very front part of the eye. Sometimes, people describe an cornea…

When we perform cataract surgery, we take natural crystalline lens out of the eye and replace it with an artificial lens implant. I sometimes describe the natural lens of the eye as an M&M: there is an outer “candy shell” with “chocolate” inside. The chocolate represents the cataract itself, and the candy shell represents the…

When we perform cataract surgeries (and even other eye surgeries), we need some space to work. When the incision is made into the eye, all the fluid in the eye will run out and there will be no space between eye structures. Therefore, we inject a substance called an “ophthalmic viscoelastic device” (OVD or simply…

When performing cataract surgery, it is important to realize that the surgery puts energy into the eye. That energy can damage the inside of the cornea. I often have conversations with patients in which I tell them that the “inside part of [their] cornea doesn’t work as well as it could.” This means that I…

One of the biggest frustrations in practice occurs when there is a technical issue. Either the computers stop working as expected (usually this is the smaller issue), or the system that runs the electronic medical record has a problem (which is the “main pain”). Given that patient histories are in the medical record, we often…