Eye Health Solutions

Happy Friday once again. I have had kids home with snow days the last 2 Friday's so it seems especially quiet this morning. I am reading headlines about the 2020 novel coronavirus outbreak so it seemed fitting to discuss this a bit along with how it relates to your eyes. This also applies to the influenza B outbreak going through Knoxville schools right now as well. We have all had a coronavirus infection at some point. It is a common virus and your symptoms would be like any mild viral infection and presented as a mild to moderate cold. The difference with this one is that it is new or "novel" and our immune systems are poorly equipped to fight it. This is similar to SARS, MERS, or even the Spanish flu where common viruses change and become much more potent. Two years ago I did some traveling in Japan and in Asian countries post SARS it is common to see surgical masks on people just walking around in public. Culturally this is done more as a courtesy if someone is si...

Greetings all. Its another snowy day and schools are closed so hopefully if you are home with your kids they are outside playing in the snow. To follow up on the last couple blog post on diet and detecting Alzheimer's disease through retinal scanning I have had a few questions on what do you do to prevent it? It is a great question and unfortunately we are far from having all the answers. However, there are things we can do to lessen the risk.  I look at these things like investing money. If you do a little early it can pay big dividends later in life when it counts. If you have a family history of dementia, like I do, you become interested in not going down that path if you can make choices to avoid it. 1. Get enough sleep. I can't take credit for the quote and it escapes me whose it is. I saw it in Dr. Matthew Walkers book on sleep which I highly recommend. "The amount of people that can get by on less than 7 hours of sleep rounded to the nearest percent and express...

Happy Friday everyone! It is currently cold and freezing rain, so a far cry from the 60 degree temps we enjoyed on Thursday. Such is life in the mid-west. I have been aware of this for the last couple of years but an article hit USA Today on January 6th so I thought it would be good to discuss it briefly. First, just a little basic anatomy.  The retina is a direct extension of your brain. It is not an exaggeration to say we are looking at your brain when we look into your eye at the back of the eye where the retina is. It is obviously much easier and less expensive to look into the eye than look at your brain via an MRI or PET scan which can cost thousands of dollars. Research is being done with a retinal scanning device called an OCT that would be able to pick up early changes in the retina consistent with the plaques that form in the brain with Alzheimer's disease. Imagine being able to run a simple, inexpensive (a couple hundred dollars) scan and determine if there is disea...

Happy New Year! It is the start of a new year and people are making their resolutions and reflecting on the past year. One of the common resolutions I hear is to be healthier by exercising more and eating better. The British Journal of Ophthalmology published a study on dietary choices and the development of eye disease. The study was published in December 2019.  The eye disease studied was age related macular degeneration, AMD for short. In my world we have known that diet is a risk factor for years, and talk to patients daily about it. The study showed that the standard american diet, SAD for short, was linked to increase risk in development of AMD. I think we all understand that better lifestyle choices can help prevent cardiovascular disease and protect your heart. This study shows that we should also be eating well to protect our vision as we age and prevent blindness. Dr. Jason