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2008-Jul-21 01:27
Introduction
Our eyes are supposedly considered to be the mirror of our personality. They reflect the kind of person that we are and use expressions to communicate without words. They also help us to see the beautiful creations of God and add a distinct meaning to our life, everyday.

Often, we take a lot of care to make our eyes look beautiful and appealing to others. We use eye-shadows, eye-liners and various other eye make-up products to enhance the external appearance of our eyes. However, seldom do we remember about the basic health aspects of our eyes. Usually, most of us consider the gift of eye-sight as a natural phenomenon and tend to take it for granted. As a result, we forget to take care of our eyes and suffer from various consequences which sometimes lead to impaired vision or even permanent loss of eyesight.

Importance of Vision Care
It is only when we come across a blind person or face eye-problems ourselves; we start thinking of the importance of caring for our eyes. Generally, we think that eye problems are a part of the aging process and deal with them quite casually. It is indeed true that some eye problems occur with age; however, there have been and there are people who have enjoyed problem free vision and healthy eyes even at old age. This has been possible due to adequate care and measures taken and followed on a regular basis. Even if you are not facing any serious problem today, it is always good to imbibe some basic vision care practices, which would help you enjoy a bright and clear vision even at your old age.

Causes of Eye Problems
Excessive stressing of your eyes (reading, watching television, working in front of the computer), lack of proper diet, excessive smoking, obesity, too much exposure to the ultra-violet rays of the sun, diabetics, certain medications like steroids, hereditary problems and lack of adequate sleep and rest are some of the major reasons that lead to various eye problems.

How to take care of your Eyes
Taking care of your eyes is not a very complicated job. Here are some basic things that you can adhere to as a part of your vision care practice.

Avoid Excessive Stress
Try to take short breaks at a regular interval when you are working in front of the computer all through the day. Your work might demand you to sit with the computer but your eyes also need some rest in between. Similarly, avoid continuous reading or watching television for long hours.

Wash your Eyes Often
Splash cold water in your eyes whenever you are taking breaks from work. This will help your eyes relax and provide comfort from over-strain.

Eat Healthy
Your diet plays a significant role in controlling your eye problems and keeping them healthy. Eat lots of fresh fruits, carrots, spinach, almonds and green vegetables to ensure a healthy vision. A cup of broccoli everyday can keep a lot of your eye problems at bay. Consult your doctor to prepare a diet chart that would contain a lot of Vitamin A, C and E in your regular meals.

Blink your Eyes Often
It is good to blink your eyes as often as possible in order to keep them lubricated. Staring at the computer or television screen for a long time may cause dry eyes, which, in turn, lead to irritation, itching and heating of the eyes. Our eyes are naturally lubricated by the tears that are spread inside the surface of our eyes. Staring at the computer or television or keeping your eyelids wide open for a long time, thus, causes evaporation of the tears, leading to dry eye syndrome.

Protect your eyes from Over-Exposure to the UV Rays
Always wear sun-glasses or goggles with polarized lenses while you are going out in the sun. Over-exposure to the ultra-violet rays may affect your eye-sight and have serious after-effects at a later stage of your life.

Clean your Eyes
We all use various make-up products to make our eyes look beautiful and attractive. It is essential to remove all make-up from your eyes and wash them with cold water before you go to bed. This provides relief and comfort to the tired eyes. Make sure your eyes are completely clean and there is no make-up left.

Practice Eye Exercises
There are various simple eye exercises that ensure proper toning of the eye muscles and help prevent eye diseases. Consult your eye-specialist to know which exercises would suit your eyes best and start following them regularly. Regular exercises, for 15 to 20 minutes everyday, can be an effective way of improving your vision problems.

Give your Eyes Adequate Rest
Good sleep and adequate rest is directly related to basic vision care. A regular sound sleep of 7 to 8 hours provides the amount of rest and relaxation required for healthy eyes.

General Tips
Avoid using sharp objects and pressure in your eyes.

Be careful while using eye-drops, lotions and creams. If any of these are too old or
out-dated, they can be dangerous for your eyes.

In case you use contact lenses, avoid using them for more than 12 hours continuously.

Be careful while you are doing eye-exercises with your contact lenses on. Exercises may cause dislocation of the lenses and hurt your eyes.

A gentle massage from time to time can be very relaxing for your eyes. Placing cucumber pieces on your eyes for a few minutes before you go to bed also gives a refreshing feeling to the eyes and helps in preventing puffiness.

Avoid looking directly towards the sun.

Always place your monitor/television at a proper distance and position which is comfortable for your eyes.

Take your eyes away from the computer or television screen from time to time and re-focus on other objects for some seconds. A break of 15 minutes is considered to be ideal for every two hours that you have worked on computers.

Maintain a healthy diet and lifestyle to secure your overall health including, eyes.

Go for an eye-check up at regular intervals (yearly/half yearly), depending on your age and general health.

Those, who use spectacles or contact lenses, check your eye-power periodically to ensure that you are using lenses with the right power.

If any kind of problem persists, even after taking all the pre-cautions and safety measures, visit your eye-specialist immediately.

Try to protect your eyes from accidental injuries.

Conclusion
Caring for your eyes can be simple but very effective to reduce your eye problems. Therefore, let your eyes not just express your emotions and personality but also reflect a healthy body and soul. A little bit of care and consciousness on a regular basis can help you decrease a lot of financial, mental and physical agony caused due to eye-problems at a later stage
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2008-Jul-21 01:19
You may be rather proud of the fact that you spend so much time on the computer, that you are going to be the proud owner of some fantastic looking spectacle frames. Is it really worth it the effort? The strain on eyes is but natural, especially if you are out to tire yourself to no limits on the computer. This does not in any way demean your nature of work on the computer, (although it can be) but that it is these places including the home where we require maximum levels of especially one that requires you to be rather observant for longer durations of time.

Generally while working on the computer, one rarely realizes that he/she needs protection for the eyes even if means wearing a zero numbered spectacle. The radiation from the computer could be hazardous for your eyesight. Today most computers have colored monitors that effect at a rapid pace if you don’t have either an anti-glare spectacle or an anti-glare screen. The idea is to cut off the radiation to the maximum. Often the radiation also causes our eyes to get tired earlier than required. So its best if you spend up to 20 minutes of your time spans working with occasional breaks or breaks of water splashes. The eye muscles get refreshed and breaks like these are a welcome change for them.

Reading fine print or studying something rather closely could also cause immense strain on your eyes. Work today is generally a sedentary task requiring one to be sitting for long hours at the computer desk. Regular eye check ups and frequent breaks allows two important factors to activate at the same time. Most of our calf muscles are overtly strained while sitting in a definite position for long spans of time. Taking a break after working for a continuous 20 minutes allows the blood to circulate through more evenly as you walk away from your desks. Needless to mention it does a great deal of good for your eyes too!

Regular eye checks
Most people have this belief that looking after your eyes is only for people who have been under a strict vegetarian diet. Truly speaking diets have little effect on your eye-sight. Looking after your eyes is as vital as it could possible be for any given age. After all how much of vitamin A capsules or carrots can you have. With age and with your dominant genes, your eyes are in for an increase of the number. So its best if you could have a regular eye check up.

Generally the symptoms of eye problems begin with either problems with reading far away sign boards, watery eyes, itchiness or redness in your eyes. This could actually erupt with headaches and blackouts which may be an indicator that you need to get your eyes tested.

Straining one’s eyes
Poor eye sight could be result of age, lack of vitamin A and E and also a sign that like the rest of your body, your eyes aren’t getting the required exercise. You could use some innovations in making yourself suffer a lot lesser than normal. To begin with you could arrange your seat in a way that is best suited for you to see. To reduce eye strain, you could also indulge in some eye exercises while you are traveling. Waiting for your bus while going for work, or while at the signal in your car, you could try focusing on far away objects and try to make this more of a habit. In a lot of cases people have used this technique of viewing things and avoided Presbyopia, or far sightedness.

Rolling the eyes, or performing eye exercises, with frequent splashes of water can help too. Try giving your eyes maximum rest by moving out less in the sunlight and avoiding places where dust or pollution is at its peak. Use a pair of glares as often as possible for moving out. The amount of wrinkles that you may also avoid in the process can be immense by the use of some great looking sun glasses.

If you really must wok on the computer use a pair of spectacles with the best U.V coating. These may cost a bit more than your expectations, but you’ll be sure of complete protection. At least you can avid the eye strain and the consequent computer vision syndrome. Lastly, try using more of paper while working instead of the computer driven notes that you tend to use for making your office paperless!
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2008-May-6 06:15

Most patients who undergo refractive surgery are delighted with the results. However, just like any other surgical procedure, there are also some risks that come with it. This is why it is very important to be aware of the possible complications, effects and laser eye surgery risks.

Here is a list of the most common laser eye surgery risks, and complications

In order to understand the complications, there has to be a simple understanding of the procedure of Lasik eye surgery. Lasik eye surgery involves the cutting of a small flap in the front covering of the eye or cornea. The flap is lifted so that the laser may reshape the eye and then the flap is replaced as a type of bandage.

The flap is cut using a type of bladed instrument called a “microkeratome” or else with a laser. The surgeon's preference determines what technology is used. Using a laser to perform this portion of the procedure allows for more precision and, therefore, fewer complications are likely to arise.

Now, if the flap is not cut correctly it may fail to form properly to the surface of the eye. The flap might also be cut too small or thin, which would cause wrinkling upon the attempt to adhere the flap to the surface of the eye. These complications can lead to an irregularly shaped eye surface and in time may lead to astigmatism or blurry vision.

Vision Loss

After the procedure, a very small percentage of all patients experience a vision loss which cannot be corrected with glasses, contacts or a second surgery. This is a very rare, but very serious laser eye surgery risk.

Debilitating Visual Symptoms

Some patients experience halos, glare or double vision after surgery. This causes serious night vision problems. Even if they have a good vision on the vision chart, they may not see well at night, in fog or in other situations of low contrast. They may even see worse in these situations than they did before treatment.

Under Treatment or Over Treatment

This is a very frequent laser eye surgery risk. Only a small percentage of patients obtain 20/20 vision after surgery without glasses or contacts. You may need additional treatment to enhance vision, but this is not always possible. Even if you used to wear very weak prescription glasses before treatment, you may still need glasses or contact lenses afterwards. If you used to wear reading glasses before, you might still need them after surgery.

Severe Dry Eye Syndrome

Another laser eye surgery risk is to develop serious dry eye syndrome. After surgery, your eyes might not be able to produce enough tears for keeping moist. This not only produces discomfort, by can also reduce quality vision due to permanent blurring and other problems. This eye condition may be permanent. It is usually treated with intensive eye drop therapy, but other procedures can also be used.

Results Diminishing with Age

Another laser eye surgery risk is for results to decrease over time, especially in patients with farsighted vision. If your manifest refraction (an exam with lenses before using dilating drops) differs from your cyclopegic refraction (another exam with lenses after applying dilating drops), the chances of getting this side effect are higher.

For newer technologies, there is not enough research data available. As some of them have been developed only a few years ago, long-term effectiveness and safety cannot be determined yet. Even though they are more advanced, they might have some unknown long-term side effects.

As with any surgical procedure, there are a variety of complications. Care must be taken to select the right Lasik eye surgeon for your specific needs and also to decide of Lasik eye surgery is the right procedure for you. The most important factor in successful surgery is to find an experienced surgeon, who will monitor your follow up care, and be there with you if you find yourself having any of these complications.

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