I wear my (prescription) SUNGLASSES at night

Hello, friends!  I hope your day is starting off well.  This month is my birthday month, and I try to do little celebretory things each day of the month to remind myself how lucky I am to be alive and healthy.  I'm a very lucky girl!

One aspect of my life that I'm very grateful for is my fabulous group of friends.  There are times in our lives when our friends play a huge role - where they are more like family.  I am lucky to have great friends and a great family. 

One of the friends I speak of is my friend Egg Beater.  You might think that's a strange name for a friend, huh?  Well, when I was a freshman in college, my roommates named all of our friends after kitchen tools.  We had wooden spoon, spatula, egg beater, etc.  I would often get messages that said "Egg Beater called at 3:45 pm," or something like that.  Anyway, Egg Beater recently asked me to write a post on the worth of prescription sunglasses, so here it is!

My opinion on Rx sunglasses is this:  Sunglasses in general are ALWAYS a good idea.  If you wear contacts all the time or have good distance vision, then prescription sunglasses are not a top priority for you because you can purchase non-prescription sunglasses and still see well.  However, if you're like Egg Beater (you have a high prescription in your glasses), then prescription sunglasses are an awesome idea and worth the cost.

Sunglasses protect your eyes from UV-A and UV-B rays that can damage your eyes.  Skin cancer around your eyelids, along with cataracts and corneal or retinal burns can all be the result of sun exposure to your eyes.  None of those things sound fun, right?  Wear some sunglasses!

I'd like to also stress the importance of protecting your child's eyes from the sun.  You put sunscreen on your kid when they go to the beach, right?  Please protect their eyes from the sun as well, you'll be glad you did!

One last awesome thing about sunglasses (Rx or not):  They make you look super hot.  Haven't you seen cool celebrities sporting shades before?

Anyway, the optimist optometrist is very proud that you're thinking about your eye health and that you are going to protect your eyes from the sun.  Speaking of which, I'm off of work today, so am going to grab my sunglasses and head to the beach!  Hope your day is as great as mine is shaping up to be!!!

My doctor said I have narrow angles - What the heck does that mean??

Hello, friends!  Thanks for reading today.  I hope each of you had an awesome weekend.  I just got back from doing a triathlon at the Space Center.  It was beyond cool!  The cycling was a bit more than I'm used to but I'm glad to say that it went pretty well.

I am very lucky to have wonderful people in my life.  One of them is my aunt Lisa.  She is awesome - kind, loves animals, compassionate, loves to travel, can find great deals, ... you name it.  Anyway, she asked me to write a post on narrow angles, so here it is!

So, there's a part of the eye called the angle.  It's called an angle because that's eactly what it is.  It is a space between (cue the Dave Matthews song here) the cornea and the iris that can be different sizes in different people. 

Generally (but of course there are exceptions to every rule):

FARSIGHTED individuals (Hyperopic; Glasses prescription is a "plus" or "+" prescrption, cannot see well up close) generally have narrower/smaller angles than their nearsighted friends.

NEARSIGHTED individuals (Myopic; glasses prescription is a "minus" or "-" prescription, cannot see well far away) usually have more wide or open angles.

So what's the problem if you have narrow angles?  In some cases, it's no big deal.  However, in other cases, narrow angles can cause the pressure in the eye to build up, leading to something you probably don't want to have called glaucoma.  The eye pressure builds up sometimes in narrow angles because the angle is where the fluid drains - too much fluid and not enough draining leads to increased pressure.  Kind of like my garbage disposal last week (it wasn't pretty).

If you are concerned about narrow angles, go see your friendly optometrist so they can take a look at your eyes.  I promise once again that we are SO NICE!  We want to help you and we love questions!!  So ask us, we want to help!

Your optometrist can use a microscope called a slit lamp to look at your eye magnified many times.  We can see how shallow or deep your angle is.  If it is very narrow or shallow and we are concerned that the fluid isn't properly draining, we may send you to a spccialist to do a cool laser treatment to allow for better drainage.  Basically, the laser forms a tiny hole in the colored part of the eye so that the fluid has another way to go.  If your doctor recommends this procedure, please don't worry - it's a pretty quick procedure and doesn't cause any pain.

I hope you have found this post helpful, and I hope you are trying to make each day your best!  Have a wonderful week.  :)

Appreciation of the present

Hello, friends.  Just feeling really thankful and wanted to share.  I was reminded recently on how important it is to let go of things/people/ideas in your life that no longer serve you.  The past, that you may long for now, was ignored by you when it was the present.  The present is all you have!  Live for now.  I'm trying to do that myself.

So, it's really rainy here and rain makes me think.  Just wanted to share my rainy day thoughts!  Hope you all have a wonderful weekend.