The quality of spectacle lenses has improved dramatically over the years.  I wear progressive, no-line multifocal lenses instead of lined bifocals.  I have super-thin lenses, with anti-glare, anti-reflective lens coatings.  Amazing!

Did MIT develop this type technology just for me? (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

However, I am the single most visually-compulsive person that I know.  Dr. Tucker, who founded our clinic 39 years ago, called folks like me “critical observers.”  I notice every little thing with my glasses.  Every speck of dust annoys me to no end.  So, I clean them several times each day.

Well, researchers at MIT may be developing a new lens coating for all glass surfaces that may provide the answer for folks like me (and you?).  This new coating makes the surface incredibly hydrophobic, so water bounces off the surface.  Dust does not adhere. Fingerprints will be a thing of the past!  Optical clarity is amazing.  It is currently too expensive to be practical for our spectacle lenses, but the future is becoming clearer every day (pardon the pun!).

See more about the new research here:  http://bit.ly/IJdW9N

Be well!

Dr. Tony Clark
www.trianglevisions.com
919.544.2020 (Durham/RTP)
919.367.5555 (Cary)

First, let me say that we recognize that this common procedure is an annoyance for most patients.  It causes you to be more light sensitive, and to have more difficulty reading, for a few hours.  No one likes that; we don’t like it when we get our own pupils dilated!  Thankfully, the drops that we use to dilate today are dramatically more gentle than the ones we used just a few years ago.

A healthy left retina, central 20% (Photo credit: Richard Masoner / Cyclelicious)

I’d like you to think of the pupil as a key hole.  If you put your own eye up to a key hole, you can see a part of the room inside.  The bigger the key hole, the more you can see.  This is the principle behind dilating the pupil during your examination.  Without dilating, we can visualize approximately 20% of the entire retina (the inner lining of the eye, which serves as the film in the camera, converting light into electricity which your brain can work with).  We see the optic nerve, the macula, and the major arteries and veins.

However, without dilating, we cannot visualize the peripheral 80% or so of the retina.  This peripheral retina is where things like retinal holes and detachments tend to occur, and can also be the location of life-threatening conditions such as cancer.  Through a dilated pupil, we can usually see at least 90% of the entire retina, often more.

Peripheral retinal tear, easily missed without dilation

At Triangle Visions, we do not charge a fee for routine dilation.  We do not believe that it is necessary every year for every patient, but most patients should at least be dilated every two years.  Some of our patients, for example those with diabetes or macular degeneration, may need dilation ore than once per year.  We always tailor our treatment and our procedural plans to each individual patient, and this includes how often we dilate your pupils.  Granted, it is a temporary annoyance; but it has no lasting side effects, wears off relatively quickly, and provides us with a wealth of information about your eye and your overall health.  I’d say that makes pupil dilation on a regular basis a pretty worthwhile thing for all our patients!

Be well!

Dr. Tony Clark
www.trianglevisions.com
919.544.2020 (Durham/RTP)
919.367.5555 (Cary)

Well, it happens every year.  We preach and preach for all our contact lens patients to follow the prescribed wearing schedule, use the prescribed solutions, and have accurate back-up glasses.  As Santa checks his list of naughty and nice, where would you fall when it comes to following your eye doctor’s instructions regarding your contact lenses?  As often happens, late afternoon on Christmas Eve, a Durham patient paged me; from the tone of her voice, I worried that a true ocular emergecny had taken place.  Sure enough…..she had ripped her last contact lens!!!!  The horror!!!!  When I asked her about the back-up glasses that we had personally recommended to her every year for the past 7 years, she admitted that she had never purchased them.  ”What can I do Dr. Clark?  I need to see for Christmas!”  I gently (well, sort of gently) reminded her that THESE ARE THE REASONS that she ought to have the glasses, and then I called Mike, who has worked on our team for 14 years.  Mike met the patient at the office and gave her a pair of lenses to last her until she could get in to buy lenses this week.

Image via Wikipedia

The day before, a bit after we closed for the Christmas holiday on December 23rd, we got a call from a similarly frantic Mother; her son was having terrible eye pain.  I met this new family to our practice in our Cary office, and sure enough the ten-year-old son had a large corneal abrasion in his right eye.  This was a big one!  Every patient that I have ever had who has given birth and has also suffered a significant corneal abrasion has sworn that the abrasion hurt worse.  This little guy was hurting, and in for a tough Christmas!  Thankfully, I was able to fit him in a bandage contact lens, prescribe protective medications, and when I checked on him that evening he was already feeling much better.  Christmas trees and corneas do not mix!

We cannot predict true accidents.  To paraphrase a popular saying, “Abrasions happen!”  However, we can predict other problems.  If you do not follow instruction concerning your contact lenses, you have a much greater likelihood of having a problem later.  We make our recommendations based on over 38 years of experience, and they are backed by lots of studies and research.  We care for you and your eyes!  All we ask is that you care as much about them as we do!

Be well (or I guess I should say, essere ben)!

Dr. Tony Clark
www.trianglevisions.com
919.544.2020 (Durham/RTP)
919.367.5555 (Cary)

Usually this space is devoted to health care issues, or more specifically to eye care topics.  Well, not this time!  This particular blog will talk about home towns and holidays.

You folks may know that I am a compassionate eye doctor; or that I love my wife of (almost) 25 years deeply; or that I have 6 children. However, did you know that I grew up in Apex NC?  That I currently live 4 miles from where I grew up?  Well, our Cary office is only 3 miles from my childhood home, and I love living in my home town.  My optometrist wife and I were offered numerous opportunities around the country when we graduated from school in 1990, but we wanted to raise our children “back home.”  Living here has been wonderful.  My children know their grandparents, aunts and uncles, and their 15 cousins well.  I have the privilege of providing eye care to high school and college classmates.

We also enjoy attending Ambassador Presbyterian Church in Apex.  Recently, our church participated in the Apex Christmas Parade, with a float depicting the manger scene at the birth of Christ.  In a perfect case of type-casting, I was asked to play the part of a wise man (okay, my wife says that may be a stretch!).  We love this particular parade, and have attended it for many years.  This year, there were thousands of folks in attendance, the weather was perfect, and we had a blast.  As I walked the course of the parade, I even saw several patients in attendance.  It was a delight to be a part of this home town parade, and to do so with my family (one angel, two sheep, and one shepherd).

Triangle Visions doctor posing as a wise man in the Apex Christmas Parade

It was an even greater honor to have an opportunity to visibly demonstrate what we believe: that Jesus was the word become flesh, born of a virgin, come to save a dying world.  This belief permeates who we are and what we do in our clinics as well.  We value others more highly than ourselves.  We thank God for each and every patient in our RTP/Durham and our Cary/Apex optometry offices.  We treat people fairly, like family.  We understand that each and every time we see someone in our offices, we have an opportunity to impact their lives for good, and we thank you for that privilege.  The fact that you trust us with your eye care is a gift, and we understand that quite well.

So, to you and yours from all of us at Triangle Visions,

Merry Christmas and God bless!

 Dr. Tony Clark
www.trianglevisions.com
919.544.2020 (Durham/RTP)
919.367.5555 (Cary)

My wife and I have been at Triangle Visions for 18 years now.  Wow!  In many ways it seems much shorter than that!  Dr. Glupker joined us in 1992, which also seems amazing.  One of the things that we have consistently noticed over the years is that we get very busy in late November and December.  I think we have found the two chief reasons for this phenomenon:

First, every year about now folks like you start realizing that they have money left in their flexible spending accounts at work.  With all flex accounts, if you have money left over at the end of the year, you lose it.  So, every year, many patients come in to purchase that spare pair of glasses, or sunglasses, or contact lenses for occasions.  If you find yourself in this situation, please let us know if we can answer any questions.

Image via Wikipedia

The second reason that we get busy at Triangle Visions after Thanksgiving is simple: live Christmas trees.  We discovered this when my daughter and I went to the doctor a few years ago.  We had realized that we were both sickly the majority of December each year.  The doc informed us that almost all live trees have MOLD, and of course we are both allergic to mold.  We switched to an artificial tree, which I had mocked all my life, and our December illness has never returned.  In our optometric office, this manifests itself in a surge of patients with ocular allergies.  If you are experiencing red, itchy, teary eyes over the next few weeks, you may want to think about whether you should invite mold as a holiday guest next year!

I hope you have a great Thanksgiving, and I’ll write again soon.

Be well,

Dr. Tony Clark
www.trianglevisions.com
919.544.2020 (Durham/RTP)
919.367.5555 (Cary)