Patients often notice that lights during an eye exam are really bright. Sometimes, people notice a pattern of lines that they only see with bright lights shining in their eyes. This pattern of squiggly lines is always the same, but these people don’t notice the lines when there aren’t any bright lights. What are they?…

We can do wonders these days with cataract surgery. In the right patients, implantation of certain lenses can make them almost completely glasses free. (It is important to note that this cannot be done for ALL patients). However, I think that we have gotten to the point where the expectations for insurance-covered surgery need to…

I’ve been thinking about our lateness and no-show policy recently. My overall philosophy is that I will see a patient (assuming we are still in the office) no matter how late they show up for their appointment. However, if they are more than half an hour late, I think that all on-time patients take priority…

Last week, I wrote that people should have cataract surgery when they have blurred vision that is not correctable with glasses (and we find a cataract that explains the blurry vision on exam). I wrote about my rule of thumb that patients should have cataract surgery if they turn 80 and have any vision imperfections…

Cataracts are considered a blinding disease, because, if they are not surgically removed, they will eventually lead to very poor vision. The key word here is “eventually,” because many people live their whole lives without undergoing cataract surgery. The way I think of it is that their other medical problems were worse than their cataract.…

“Why do I need to be dilated?” It is a fair question. The basic answer is that we can’t get a good eye exam without dilation. Lately, cameras have advanced so that the parts of the eye that we can’t examine ourselves without dilation can sometimes be captured in a picture. Those pictures can show…

One of the things that really gets some patients anxious is getting tested for glasses prescriptions. Often, people are unsure of what answers they should give if letters don’t look quite clear with either option presented. I have some tips for these situations. First, you should relax. If you answer in a non-optimal way and…

I can’t tell you how frequently I have heard people who feel that their eyes are “tired.” But what does it mean for an eye to be tired? Certainly it doesn’t mean that your eyes have been exercising too much! Usually people mean that their eyes feel the same way that their eyes feel when…

My patients are sometimes confused about eye pressure. What is eye pressure? The pressure of the fluid inside the eyeball is higher than the pressure of the air outside (atmospheric pressure). That keeps the eyeball firm and round instead of floppy and collapsible. The pressure of the fluid in the eyeball is controlled by production…

I posted in the past about injecting antibiotics in the front of the eye to reduce post-cataract surgery infections (from a very very low rate to a very very VERY low rate). I wrote about how choosing vancomycin as the antibiotic might cause more harm in some patients, so it is very controversial whether it…