This month our featured products are BluTech lenses and Orthokeratology!
BluTech Lenses
We all love our technology, but what you don’t know is that the high concentration of artificial light from your electronics such as iPads, iPhones, etc. can harm your helath and your eyes. Newer electronics emit harmful blue light, which is compounded by the close distance we hold our screens to our eyes. Blue light causes the gradual oxidation and deterioration of the macula over your lifetime. It damages your retina and leaves your eyes susceptible to developing macular degeneration, losing vision in the center of your visual field. If that is not enough, the blue light from your electronics also suppresses your body’s melatonin production. Melatonin is a hormone that makes us drowsy and ready to sleep. Thus, when you use your electronics at night, your body is fooled by the artificial light, and takes longer to fall asleep. Artificial light is lessening the amount and quality of time you sleep at night, which can affect your health and overall performance over an extended amount of time.
Sources of blue light exposure include the sun, desktop computers, smart phones, televisions, gaming consoles, CFL light bulbs, and tablets. People most at risk for blue light exposure and retinal damage are children under age 18 and patients who have had cataract surgery, because of their young (or artificial for cataract patients) lenses. Their lenses are crystal clear and don’t stop the passage of blue light.
Blue light is responsible for tired eyes, sensitivity to light, loss of sharp contrast vision, difficulty seeing at night, and a discomforting glare. It can affect your health by causing you fatigue, making it difficult for you to stay focused or in falling/staying asleep. It can cause you headaches and an increase in migraines, and behavioral issues in children. It also causes risk of early onset cataracts, diabetes, obesity, and macular degeneration.
Luckily, there are lenses that can help protect you and your children’s eyes from harmful blue light. BluTech lenses filter high-energy blue and UV light using ocular lens pigment combined with melanin and isolated in a durable material. This optical lens infused with pigment provides optimum blue light protection, contrast enhancement, natural depth and color perception, because it works well with your eye’s natural yellow-brown coloration of the crystalline lens. The lenses also reduce glare, improve visual acuity and night vision, and are high impact resistant, which means they are ideal for children who are less careful with their lenses.
Orthokeratology
Are you tired of wearing your contacts or glasses during the day? Is the thought or cost of invasive surgery such as LASIK disconcerting to you? Then orthokeratology, also called ortho-k, is a great option to treat your myopia. Ortho-k lenses are worn at night to reshape your cornea, so you can awaken with better vision and say goodbye to your eyewear in the day.
Orthokeratology is a procedure that corrects for myopia (near-sightedness), hyperopia (far-sightedness), and astigmatism. This procedure is far less invasive than most, and has even been shown to slow myopia progression. Patients using the orthokeratology procedure wear gas permeable lenses at night in order to reshape their cornea and improve their vision. Ortho-K is most comparable to wearing braces, but to correct your eyes and not your teeth. Patients will receive lenses specifically molded to their eyes by using topography to determine the size of their cornea. They will wear their lenses nightly to gradually improve their vision, and start seeing clearly without corrective contact lenses or glasses during the day.
Orthokeratology is for individuals who want to eliminate their need for eyeglasses or contacts, and don’t want the risk or cost of having surgery. Ortho-k is best for near sighted individual’s under 40 years old with a mild of prescription of -4 diopters or less. The success rate is higher for those with a mild prescription. 65% of patients achieve 20/20 vision after treatment, and 90% of patients achieve 20/40 vision. Orthokeratology may not be best for individuals with dry eyes, large pupil size, or high myopia. Orthokeratology is also safe and great for your children. In fact, ortho-k has shown to work best in children. Children that use orthokeratology have shown improvement in their vision, and in some cases have shown a slow in progression of their myopia, thus they won’t inherit their parent’ s prescription of myopia. While there is no way to predict the effect on each individual child, ortho-k has seen great results as a whole. Plus, if your child wears the lenses at night they are less likely to break expensive eyewear during the day! If you are interested in ortho-k as a treatment for your myoia, then you should schedule a consultation with Dr. Li.