Eye Safety Tips for Water Activities

Eye Safety Tips for Water Activities

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Before you dive in to the water for your next swimming trip, we recommend learning a little about some eye safety considerations that come with water activities (whether you prefer a pool, river, lake, ocean, water park, or backyard Slip N Slide)

Why Water Can Make Your Eyes Burn

Anyone who has opened their eyes underwater at the pool has felt the sting of chloramine. That’s the name of the compound that forms when chlorine binds to contaminants like dirt, oils, and urine that get in the water. It might sound gross, but it’s actually chlorine doing its job and killing the harmful bacteria. Most of the time, chloramine will only cause mild, temporary irritation, and that can also happen if the pH of the pool isn’t balanced.

Keep Your Goggles On

Goggles are a wonderful way to protect your eyes against any contaminants in the water. Find a pair that fits your head well and forms a good seal over your eyes. If they’re so tight that they give you headaches or are so loose that they fall off, that’s no good! It’s even possible to get prescription goggles if you’re going to be spending a lot of time underwater and want to see as clearly as possible.

Leave Your Contacts on Land

A few microorganisms can survive contact with the chlorine in pool water, which is bad news for anyone who wears contact lenses. They act like Petri dishes for these hardy germs, which love moist, warm environments to multiply in. If you do wear contact lenses while swimming, please also wear goggles to reduce the risk of pool water getting on your contacts.

The most dangerous microorganisms living in water are acanthamoeba. While they live in every body of water on the planet, they usually aren’t anything to worry about. However, wearing contacts while swimming gives them much more access to the surface of the eye than they would get otherwise. In the worst case scenario, they burrow into the cornea and cause acanthamoeba keratitis, a condition that can come with permanent blindness.

Even when we leave the germs aside, contacts on their own are a problem in water. They aren’t designed to be submerged, and it could lead to them swelling up and tightening around the cornea, causing irritation, or coming loose and falling out. Overall, it’s safer to leave the contacts at home and stick to glasses and goggles while enjoying the water.

Keep your eyes safe and have fun in the water!

Despite these helpful eye tips, nothing beats having visual freedom when you hit the waters.

LASIK can take away all your visual problems! Schedule your screening now!

For inquiries, questions, and appointments, call our Patient Care Lines: 

📱 (+63) 917 862 7454

📱 (+63) 921 217 0517

📞 (+632) 7-368 5238

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Early Detection Saves Visions

Early Detection Saves Visions

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Receiving annual eye exams is crucial to detecting signs of disease early and staving off vision loss.

Why is early detection so important for eye-related issues?

Many of the most common and serious eye-related diseases are degenerative, meaning that their effects will naturally increase as time progresses, even if nothing else changes. Once these degenerative conditions start to affect your eye health there is often no going back, and the damage that has already occurred cannot be undone.

The very best defense you have against degenerative conditions is to discover them as early as possible so that corrective measures can be taken. Conditions such as cataracts, macular degeneration, and glaucoma affect millions of Filipinos every year, and there are surgeries and other corrective procedures that can be used to treat many diseases and halt the loss of vision. If you’re able to catch them early, your ophthalmologist may be able to treat the condition with minimal vision loss.

Do I need to have a separate exam if I already get an initial vision screening?

Many people receive regular vision screenings and may confuse them with a comprehensive eye exam. The fact is that vision screenings are only designed to test your visual acuity at a given time, and they can be performed by anyone, anywhere. You probably have a vision screening kiosk at your local mall, and it’s the same procedure they perform at the transport office when you apply for a driver’s license.

This is very different from an eye health exam, which must be conducted by a medical eye specialist (typically an ophthalmologist or optometrist), and is designed to check for signs of conditions that can cause vision loss. Even if you get regular vision screenings to test the effectiveness of your eyeglasses or contact lenses, it’s vital for everyone to undergo a comprehensive eye exam that will test for potentially dangerous diseases.

What steps can I take to secure my long-term eye health?

Early detection is only possible if you undergo regular and frequent eye exams conducted by a medical professional. If you have never suffered from any eye conditions and you know you don’t have a family history of eye-related diseases, you should get an exam every other year at a minimum. For most people, an annual exam is recommended.

At Shinagawa, our goal is to make early detection of eye diseases a common outcome, so that more patients can have their conditions corrected before lasting damage is done. 

We are dedicated to improving the eye health of Filipinos, so contact us today to schedule your annual eye health exam and learn more about how early detection can save your vision.

For inquiries, questions, and appointments, call our Patient Care Lines: 

📱 (+63) 917 862 7454

📱 (+63) 921 217 0517

📞 (+632) 7-368 5238

🖥 Talk to our Consultants via Livechat: https://shinagawa.ph/

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Knowing Corneal Cross-Linking

Knowing Corneal Cross-Linking

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If you have a weak cornea, there’s actually a procedure that can strengthen it. Corneal Cross-Linking is a procedure that is done to treat a warped or weakened cornea. 

Surgery or disease sometimes harms the eye’s collagen, which helps keep the cornea together. The cross-linking procedure helps the new collagen fibers unite, strengthen, and reinforce the cornea.

Who Needs Corneal Cross-Linking?

There are some different conditions where cross-linking can be helpful.

Keratoconus: If you have keratoconus, the cornea thins and changes shape over time. The cornea is typically round but will bulge outward until it’s shaped more like a cone if you have this eye condition. This can cause blurry vision and other symptoms. Cross-linking is the only treatment that can be used to stop progressive keratoconus from worsening. This surgery can help you avoid a corneal transplant in the future, which is major surgery.

Corneal Bulging after LASIK Surgery: During LASIK surgery, the corneal tissue is removed to correct blurry vision. It’s rare, but surgery and tissue removal sometimes weaken the cornea. This then causes the cornea to bulge forward, like keratoconus.

The procedure may not be suitable for some people. Your eye doctor can tell you if the treatment can help you since it can’t reverse any cornea changes. Since it does help slow progression, you’ll want to make sure you talk to your eye doctor sooner rather than later if you have keratoconus.

More about Keratoconus

The name keratoconus means cone-shaped, and the abnormal shape of the cornea is what is responsible for the distortion of visual images. If you have keratoconus, you may notice symptoms such as glare, light irritation or sensitivity, distortion or blurring of vision, and frequent changing of contact lens prescriptions or glasses with a high level of astigmatism. These symptoms are common for other eye diseases, so getting a proper keratoconus diagnosis from your ophthalmologist is crucial.

The cause of keratoconus is unknown, but it will usually start to appear in people in their late 20s. The disease will usually progress for about 10 to 20 years, and the cornea will continue to steepen. Both eyes may be affected, but one eye will usually be worse than the other. Genetics may contribute to the risk of developing the eye condition. Vigorous eye rubbing helps add to the progression of the disease, so it’s important to avoid rubbing the eyes too hard.

Keratoconus can be seen during routine eye exams, so it’s essential for optimal eye health to regularly visit your eye doctor, especially if you have vision issues. A keratoconus diagnosis will often be confirmed using cornea photographs taken during an exam to highlight any irregularities and a measurement of the cornea’s curvature.

How to Prepare for the Procedure

On the day of the procedure, you shouldn’t wear any aftershave, perfume, or eye makeup. In many cases, you should be able to drink fluids and eat a light meal before the procedure. Since your eyesight will be affected for some time after the procedure, you will need someone to drive you home.

What Happens During the Procedure?

This procedure is outpatient, so you will go home the same day. There are a few things you can expect to happen.

The procedure begins with you being given eye drops to numb your eyes. Your ophthalmologist will then remove the thin outer layer of the cornea. This allows the numbing medication and the other medication to reach further into the cornea, so you won’t feel any pain during the procedure. Then Vitamin B, also known as riboflavin, eye drop medicine is applied to the eye for about 30 minutes. The whole procedure takes about 90 minutes, but you will likely be in the office for two hours to prepare as well as recover.

After applying the medication to the eye, a special device shines a focused beam with UV light rays at the cornea for about 30 minutes. The UV light activates the medicine in the cornea to form new bonds between the fibers in the cornea. Then a bandage is placed over the eyes to help the cornea heal. Your eye doctor will recommend leaving this bandage on the eye for about a week. You will be given steroid, and antibiotic drops to ensure your eye heals properly.

Due to the numbing drops, you shouldn’t experience any pain during the procedure. There can be some pain in the immediate recovery period, though. The bandage reduces discomfort and pain, and you may be prescribed some painkillers after the procedure if over-the-counter pain pills aren’t strong enough.

Types of Corneal Cross-Linking

This procedure has two different types: epi (short for epithelium, the other layer of your cornea) off and an experimental epi-on procedure.

Using the epi-off technique, your eye doctor removes the epithelium before any eye drops are put on. With the epi-on procedure, your eye doctor will loosen the epithelium with a sponge or eye drops before the eye drops are put in.

The goal of the procedure is to keep the corneal bulging from worsening. At the same time, it can be done in combination with LASIK, making certain patients qualified for the popular vision correction treatment.

Corneal Cross-Linking is not a procedure you want to put off if you suffer from cornea bulging or keratoconus to preserve your eye health. Since it’s the only approved treatment for keratoconus and can help slow down progression, you want to speak with your eye doctor as soon as possible. 

Shinagawa Lasik Center is dedicated to eye care with the most advanced technologies in convenient locations. Reach our specialists today.

For inquiries, questions, and appointments, call our Patient Care Lines: 

📱 (+63) 917 862 7454

📱 (+63) 921 217 0517

📞 (+632) 7-368 5238

🖥 Talk to our Consultants via Livechat: https://shinagawa.ph/

📱 Instagram: https://instagram.com/shinagawa_ph/

Protecting Your Eyes At The Office

Protecting Your Eyes At The Office

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Are you an office person? For sure, your eyes are fully used for each of your work days.

On average, a typical Filipino adult spends an estimated eight hours staring at digital devices on a daily basis. This unprecedented level of screen time has caused a dramatic increase in the number of people suffering from digital eye strain. In fact, approximately 70 percent of working adults, who use a computer on a daily basis, suffer from digital eye strain. 

In a world where your job depends on using digital devices, the following tips can help you protect your eyes and relieve digital eye strain while you are in the office.

TIP #1: Organize your Workspace

Did you know that preventing digital eye strain begins with the distance that you keep between your eyes and your tablet, computer, and smartphone screen? The ideal distance between your desktop or laptop and your eyes should be approximately one arm’s length. Additionally, the center of your computer’s screen should be between 10 and 15 degrees below your eye level to increase back and neck comfort. If the majority of your work is completed on a smartphone or tablet, then you should try to keep the devices 16 to 18 inches away from your eyes to reduce digital eye strain.

TIP #2: Always Use Proper Lighting

Whether it is from harsh overhead lighting or an abundance of natural light that causes you to squint at your computer’s screen, the wrong lighting can strain your eyes. To reduce eye strain you can implement the following tips.

Set your computer’s brightness to match your surroundings. In other words, your computer’s screen shouldn’t be so dim that you are squinting to see it, nor should it be so bright that it serves as a beacon in an otherwise neutrally lit room. Don’t forget to also adjust the brightness on your smartphone and tablet.

Use drapes and blinds to reduce natural light (as needed).

Reposition your computer screen to avoid glare.

TIP #3: Modify Your Device’s Settings

In addition to adjusting the brightness on your devices, you can also modify settings to help prevent digital eye strain.

Try enlarging the text size on all of your devices. 

— As a general rule of thumb, the smaller the text, the harder your eyes have to work.

Reduce the amount of blue light that your devices emit. 

— Blue light is associated with higher rates of eye strain, which means that choosing another hue, such as red or orange, can help you to protect your eyes.

Set “device break” reminders throughout the day. 

— Give your eyes a break from screens by looking away from your computer at something that is 20 feet away for at least 20 seconds. Try to give your eyes a break at least once every 20 minutes. If you can’t give your eyes a break every 20 minutes, then remember to blink more, which will give your eyes the moisture and nutrients that they need to stay healthy and lubricated.

Have you begun to feel the effects of digital eye strain? If your eyes are becoming irritated from prolonged daily exposure to digital screens, then you should schedule an eye appointment today with our experienced eye specialists in one of our clinics.

Our team will help you recover from digital eye strain, and suggest additional ways that you can protect your eyes while working.

For inquiries, questions, and appointments, call our Patient Care Lines: 

📱 (+63) 917 862 7454

📱 (+63) 921 217 0517

📞 (+632) 7-368 5238

🖥 Talk to our Consultants via Livechat: https://shinagawa.ph/

📱 Instagram: https://instagram.com/shinagawa_ph/

Crying Can Be Good: Why We Need Tears

Crying Can Be Good: Why We Need Tears

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We usually only think about tears when we are crying as part of our body’s emotional response to a certain situation or laughing so hard that our eyes begin to water. While tears might typically be far from our minds, the truth is that they are actually a vital part of our eye health. In fact, there are several types of tears and various reasons that we need them to maintain healthy eyesight throughout life.

Tears Protect Our Eyes on a Daily Basis

Did you know that tears protect our eyes on a daily basis? Each eye has a special tear film that creates a barrier between the eye’s vulnerable surface and outside irritants, allergens, and germs. This protective film consists of three different layers. The mucous layer sits directly on top of the cornea; the aqueous layer consists of saltwater and is the basis for our tears, while the outer layer is oily. Together, all three layers help our eyes stay lubricated and clean throughout the day. In fact, with every blink, the protective film creates tears that wash microscopic debris and irritants from our eyes, keep our vision clear, and help our eyes stay comfortable in a wide variety of conditions.

Tears Keep Our Eyes Comfortable and Offer Emotional Benefits

The aqueous layer of the protective tear film creates both reflex and emotional tears. These two types of tears have numerous benefits. As their name suggests, reflex tears are our eyes’ natural response when they need to flush out debris and other irritants. Emotional tears help to clear out stress-causing chemicals. In fact, this is why we often cry when we are faced with emotional situations. Together, reflexes and emotional tears help our eyes and bodies find relief in a wide variety of circumstances.

Too Many Tears or Dry Eyes?

Are your eyes constantly wet or overflowing with tears? Or perhaps you have the opposite problem and dry eyes are causing you discomfort. Dry eyes can occur from allergens, abnormal tear production, as a response to medication, age, and other reasons. Dry eyes can not only be uncomfortable, but they can lead to other eye issues. The good news is that our eye experts are here to help. To cure your dry eyes, and ensure that your vision is healthy, be sure to schedule an eye appointment with us!

For inquiries, questions, and appointments, call our Patient Care Lines: 

📱 (+63) 917 862 7454

📱 (+63) 921 217 0517

📞 (+632) 7-368 5238

🖥 Talk to our Consultants via Livechat: https://shinagawa.ph/

📱 Instagram: https://instagram.com/shinagawa_ph/