Computer Eye Exam Fort Collins Eye Doctor

This is a short video of what an autorefractor does when it determines your eyeglasses or contact lens prescription. It is abstract but you can see the infrared beam and changing focus as the eye computer analyzes the wavefront from the optical system of your eye.  The final determination tells us the amount of nearsightedness, farsightedness, and astigmatism you have. The cross pattern is the infrared beam that you will not see when the instrument is measuring, however it evidently has enough visible red light to show up on video. The circular pattern of lines are the image you will see and watch as amazingly it clears and comes into a crisp focus as the autorefractor works away with it’s complex algorithm. This technology greatly enhances our ability to determine your prescription with pinpoint accuracy.

Free treatment for lazy eye? Well free eye care is worth what it costs-but a simple eye drop prescription  may be able to save you a thousand dollars or more in treatment fees. And that’s equivalent to a lot of free office visits.

Forget the pirate patch, eye drops are the treatment of choice today for lazy eye. No more daily struggles with your child to keep an eye patch on, one drop in the morning and your responsibility is done for the day. Lazy eye, (technically referred to as Amblyopia), is the most common cause of permanent sight loss in children and if not treated by age 7 to 9 it persists into adulthood  with permanent damage to the visual cortex area of the brain. It is the leading cause of vision loss in one eye in the 20-70 year old age group, occurring in around 3% of the population.

Most of the information on the success of treatment of lazy eye has been from limited,uncontrolled studies. There is a great opportunity for future learning about improving the treatment of lazy eye.

Amblyopia   is still usually treated with outdated methods of occlusion (patching) of the eye that sees well. Patching therapy typically has very poor compliance, especially since you cannot be with your child every minute of the day. Kids don’t like wearing patches after the novelty wears off and may be subjected to ridicule by peers. Evidence indicates that compliance is probably the most important factor in the outcome of treatment of lazy eye.

Using a cycloplegic eye drop that prevents the good eye from focusing forces the lazy eyes to work to see thing at closer distances. As a side effect of the drops the pupil of the good eye stays dilated, so it needs some form of UV protection in eyeglasses or sunglasses. This is not a new method but it has started catching on due to recent studies showing it is effective and very well accepted by parents and children. Without a patch blocking one eye completely the child is able to maintain some level of binocular vision which helps the treatment process. It also assures there is no impairment to peripheral vision, making it a safer alternative to a patch.

Atropine is the drop normally used but we substitute homatropine. It is safer and in my opinion there is really no need  to keep the effect lasting overnight while the child is asleep.

There is a tremendous cost and time saving to the parent due to less frequent office visits and a great reduction in the amount of eye exercises needed to restore the sight. If you think there is no way you can get a drop in your child’s eye every day we have a secret for that too. If your child has a lazy eye we can help make it easy and fun!

Welcome to Dr Kisling-Fort Collins Eye Doctors Choice Website. Our vision is to be the premier resource for answers about your eye symptoms and eye problems. You can use the search box to find answers to questions about your eyes. You will find articles on contact lenses, dry eyes, glaucoma, eye nutrition pinkeye ad other eye diseases.

There is also information about eye examinations, eyeglasses, prescription eye glasses for different conditions;nearsightedness,farsightedness, astigmatism, and presbyopia.

We carry a unique selection of eyeglasses for women, men and children with the latest lens technologies including glare free anti-reflection coatings, no line progressive 5th generation eye glass lens designs, transition sunglasses tints, thin and light hi-index prescription lenses.

We also try to make your vision insurance processing as simple as possible. We welcome most insurance including Vision Service Plan (VSP).

If there is a topic you would like more information on please feel free to leave a request in the comment box. Thank you for visiting our website and we hope we can become your partner in preventative eyecare for a lifetime of healthy eyesight!

Pseudotumor cerebri is an eye condition that can be confused with a brain tumor due to swelling of the optic nerve. Like a brain tumor, the fluid inside the skull that cushions the brain and flows around the spinal column develops elevated pressure.  It is also referred to as Idiopathic Intracranial Hypertension or Benign Intracranial Hypertension. It is more prevalent in  women between the ages of 20 and 50. Symptoms of pseudotumor cerebri are usually an undiagnosed chronic headache, and in more severe cases there may be visual symptoms such as double vision. Also nausea and vomiting may occur. There is an unusual effect of  pulsating sounds within the head that are synchronous with the heart rate referred to as   Pulse-synchronous tinnitus.

A routine eye exam is where the initial diagnosis of mild cases of pseudotumor cerebri is often first made. The optic nerve that enters the back of the eye appears elevated in both eyes, a condition referred to as papilledema. Because the nerve is an extension of the brain and enclosed by the same tissues and fluid that cushion the brain, elevation in the pressure inside the brain also cause the nerve to swell. Since most cases occur in young to middle age overweight females, an elevated nerve with a history of chronic headaches and otherwise healthy is often indicative of pseudotumour cerebri. Other visual symptoms include double vision, brief periods of blurred vision or dim vision, and occasionally patient will have temporary episodes of blindness in one or both eyes. Changes in posture such as suddenly standing up or bending over may elicit symptoms, as may coughing or sneezing.

Double vision may occur when looking to the side. This is caused by a defect in abduction or the ability of an eye to turn out. due to a restriction in the capacity for one or both eyes to turn out. This presents a confusing picture when taken out of context because it is not due to damage to the abducens nerve (6th Cranial Nerve)  that controls the eyes outward motion. In this case, the double vision is called a false localizing sign. Pain can occasionally be associated with eye movements.

Rarely, the pressure can become very high and cause severe problems with vision and alterations in  levels of awareness. Most of the time truly is benign idiopathic intracranial hypertension and is managed by weight loss and occasionally medications. Sometimes discontinuation of certain medication may resolve the problems. The most severe cases may require a shunt to drain the increased fluid from the ventricles in the brain into the abdominal cavity.

Did you cram for your eye exam? Does a cold,sweaty feeling creep over your body as you wait to go into The Room? You know, The Dark room with all the blinds drawn and the chair you plunk down into while Nurse Ratchet seems to be taking great joy in adjusting you into something that looks like old sparky, the infamous Florida electric chair. Well she looked at you like she was sizing up your left kidney for the guy out front didn’t she?

Then The Fort Collins Eye Doctor comes strolling in right on time-OK truthfully you had to wait a few minutes more alone,—in a dark room,—in a chair that somewhat resembles Old Sparky,— with plenty of time to think about what was coming next.

What’s coming next is an inadequate explanation of what we are doing as Eye Doctors or no explanation at all. Most people don’t seem to want to know so if you are feeling two steps away from having your eyes water-boarded (which by the way we utilize eyeball water-boarding and it works exceptionally well when someone has a toxic chemical spilled in their eye), it’s time for you to start asking questions. (And for your Optometrist to take the que and start answering them).

First and most important I personally have only given failing grades to two patients on their eye test so your chances of passing are better than 99.999%. Those two people were both receiving a failing grade in their personal relationships prior to their eye exam so if you are having a bad day and want to yell,scream and throw things it might be a good idea to reschedule you eye examination and spend the day trying out for a local hockey team.

I find a large number of patients become very concerned they will get the wrong prescription because the lens changes are so hard to discriminate. From my side of the vision exam it’s a different perspective. We start with an instrument called an autorefractor. It does exactly what it is called; automatically it  focuses through the optics of your eye and using mathematics called wavefront analysis it determine what prescription you need. You don’t have to do a thing except look straight ahead at the target, keep still, and have your head pressed against the top headrest. Magically things clear up after the instrument whirs and hums and prints out your prescription. We refer to this as an objective refraction or reading because it is entirely independent of your verbal responses.

Now the bad part. The assistant who wants your kidney for her brother in law escorts you back to the “room“. You know whats coming next-yes it is one or two,one or two,on or two. And you thought we had to learn math for optics? Every subsequent view looks blurry and keep getting worse. It clears up in between the two bad choices you are given but the optometrist seems intent on ignoring that and giving you worse choices.

Actually it is a well designed testing sequnece called forced choice (uh oh here comes that water board). Really, if you remember the old dial TV’s where you turned past the channel and back a few times you couold bracket in to the clearest place. This part of the eye test is subjective and depends on your responses of just noticable differences. It brackets in to the place of maximum clarity. Unfortunately, that endpoint is often where it looks equally bad with both choices. Still, we force you to make a choice. That allows your eye doctor to see how repeatable your responses  are and gives a very good idea of how precise the prescription will be. Most of the time in our eye center, it will be repeatable within the accuracy level that lenses can be made in today. That means if we check you tomorrow or next week the chances are very high your eyes will read for the exact same prescription.

Next I will compare those subjective responses with what the eye computer calculated. If there are significant differences I may repeat reading with both methods after using drops to prevent focusing changes effecting the finmdings, especially in children. An added check may be done with a retinoscope, the hand held forerunner to the autorefractor we use today. While it is very low tech, it does allow me to see any variations in focusing occurring while taking an objective measurement.

Finally, a good optometrist should check your old prescription and how well you can see with it. That is a good indicator of how much change we expect to see in the new prescription.

When you add all of these things together, it really works well and rarely is a prescription wrong per say. It is more common to missunderstand how much change a patient can tolerate (we can be right and wrong at the same time), or fail in communicating unusual visual needs that have to be adressesed (like somone working on computers 70 hours per week at a non standard distance.

Spend a few extra minutes to communicatre your visual needs and distances you work at with your optometrist. Also explain any problems you have had adjusting to new glasses in the past. Then you shouldn’t need to worry about how blurry things keep looking during your eye test-there is a 99.999% probablity you will see well in the end and get to keep your kidney!
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