Four Nutritional Tips for Optimum Eye Health: Eating Your Way to Healthy Eyes

You have probably heard the old adage that ‘you are what you eat.’ What you consume plays an essential role in the cellular maintenance, growth, and functioning of your body. Maintaining a healthy diet, in addition to healthy lifestyle choices, optimizes your vision. This is especially true as we age we need various vitamins and minerals to keep our eyes working properly.

The following are four crucial tips to help you eat your way to healthy eyes and a healthy life:

1.      Beta-carotene: Eat those carrots

What’s up doc? It seems that Bugs Bunny knew a thing or two about healthy eyes. Carrots are high in beta-carotene, an anti-oxidant that decreases your risk for developing cataracts and macular degeneration. Eat them raw, put them in salads, cook them in a stew, just be sure to eat your carrots!

2.      Vitamin C

Vitamin C can be found in a variety of fresh fruits and vegetables and is another key anti-oxidant proven to protect your eyes. If you love fruit, then kiwis, oranges, and strawberries are excellent choices as they rank among the highest in Vitamin C. Also try guavas and papayas.

Several vegetables are incredibly high in Vitamin C: bell peppers, broccoli, brussels sprouts, and peas. These are great in salads, as snacks, in soups, roasted, or steamed. Eat them greens!

3.      Zinc

It’s time to think Zinc! Zinc is found in your retina where it helps the functioning of enzymes for optimum eye function. Studies have shown that people with macular degeneration often had low zinc levels.

Foods high in Zinc include: sea food, spinach (Go Popeye!), nuts such as cashews, cocoa and chocolate (an excuse to eat chocolate!), pork and chicken, and mushrooms.

Think Zinc for optimal eye health and maintenance. 

4.      Omega-3 Fats

Studies have shown that Omega-3 fats are excellent for cardiovascular health. Well, good news, they also help protect the tiny blood vessels buried in your eyes. If you love sea food such as wild salmon, oysters, sardines, herring, halibut, and fresh tuna then eat your heart out...or, umm, rather healthy!

A healthy diet accompanied with regular eye exams can help you optimize your eye sight for a healthy, full life.

For more information or to schedule an eye exam call Vision Pro to set up an appointment or stop into one of our 10 locations today!

Spring into Summer Contest

If you are like me you have probably sat on your sunglasses bending them out of shape, or dropped them and scratched the lenses. Or worse, you dropped them in the lake and watched them sink into the depths. Dang it! There goes another pair! Any on these scenarios sound familiar? If so, this may be the contest for you.

Spring into summer with some new shades! This week Vision Pro’s Spring into Summer  contest will award one lucky customer a pair of quality, name brand sunglasses up to $150 in value! If you have been afraid to treat yourself to some nice sunglasses this is the contest for you. Visit our Facebook page to enter. It only takes a few moments for a chance to win. And even of you don’t win, come see us, we have great deals on brands like Ray-ban, Oakley, Versace, Bolle, and more.

Visit our Facebook page to enter, or stop into one of our 10 locations and treat yourself to some quality sunglasses. Our professional staff will help you find the right shades to showcase your unique look!

Four Tips for Selecting the Perfect Eye Glass Frames

Vision Pro Optical Can Help You Select the Perfect Eye Glass Frames or Sunglasses for Your Unique Look.

One of the most wonderful things about the world is the diversity of people and how unique each of us look. Whether you have curly hair or straight hair, long hair or short, a square head or a round one, you can find the perfect eye glass frames to accentuate your best features and personal style. Here are four tips to help you select the perfect frames.

1. Contrast
The shape of the frames you select should typically contrast the shape of your face: if you have a sharp, angular face you want round frames; if you have a round face than you want more angular frames.

 2. Color
When selecting a color you want it to compliment your features. Black is the standard color to highlight your eyes. A color that contrasts the tone of your skin or hair will stand out more.

3. Proportion
This is rather simple: you want your frames to be in proportion to your face. Sunglasses tend to be slightly larger for more coverage.

 4. Face Shape
This is where things can seem a bit complicated. Whether you have a round, heart, diamond, oval, or square shaped face we’ll help you find the frames best suited to your unique look.

Our eye care professionals at Vision Pro will help you select eye glass frames or sunglasses that compliment your face’s best features while also considering your individual skin, eye, and hair coloring.

Call to set up an appointment or stop into one of our 10 locations today!

Putting the “I Care” into Eye Care: Eye Exams

     

                               
If you are like most people you probably dread going to the dentist, especially if you have a cavity. Even dentists know that it is unpleasant to have to sit with your mouth pried open while they tool around in there. Honestly though, how much worse is it to have a throbbing tooth ache or a tooth go abscess? Sometimes we are afraid to admit that we need help and to seek it. Face it, our quality of life really begins with our health. If you don’t have your health you have nothing. Taking care of your self should be a top priority. So, when was the last time you had an eye exam?

It’s time to put the “I Care” into eye care and that begins with you setting up an eye exam. Don’t worry, they aren't that scary. I will talk you through what to expect below.

Why Do I Need an Eye Exam?
We discussed above why you need an eye exam: to lead a healthy, active life. Eye exams may detect a potentially treatable disease that would otherwise leave you blind. As well as detecting ocular manifestations of systemic disease and signs of tumors or other potential problems of the brain. If you have a condition that affects your sight get it diagnosed and optimize your vision.

What happens at an Eye Exam?
An eye exam is an array of tests performed by an ophthalmologist, optometrist, or orthoptist to assess your vision and ability to focus on and distinguish objects. Additionally, eye exams look for any possible diseases that affect the eyes or present symptoms there.

Even before the eye exam begins your eye care specialist will obtain a thorough medical history to learn about your eyes. This could be done as simply as by asking questions such as: are your eyes bothering you; whether anyone in your family has any history of eye problems such as glaucoma; if you have any known eye diseases; if you have ever injured your eyes or have had eye surgery.

Typically, at an eye exam there are several routine tests, such as:

• Checking ability to read an eye chart
• Light reflections on eyes
• Lens choices to see when pictures become most clear
• Cover tests, to see the strain on each eye when the other is covered
• Magnified instruments to check for diseases and infections
• Measuring the pressure inside each eye
• Dilation of the pupils

These are all simple in office procedures conducted with your health and comfort in mind.

How often should I get an eye exam?
The frequency of eye examinations depends on a number of factors such as medical history, age, if you have any ocular conditions, or if anyone in your family has a history of ocular diseases. Once you have had an entrance exam your eye care specialist will help you determine how often you should have routine follow ups. Typically, you should have a checkup a minimum of once every 1-2 years.

See, that wasn’t so bad. Sure, this was just a ‘virtual’ tour of an eye exam, but you can do it, especially now that you know what to expect. Be proactive in your health and have the fore’sight’ to act, pun intended! Contact Vision pro today to set up an eye exam.

Optimizing Your Vision

Unless you are one of the rare few that never needed glasses or contacts chances are you will need some sort of vision correction to optimize your vision. Luckily, we live in a day and age where technological advances allow for glasses and contacts to be worn comfortably and where refractive surgery is an option.

In essence, eyeballs are perfectly rounded spheres that allow us to focus on objects both close and far away. However, not everyone’s eyeballs have developed into perfectly formed spheres. A developmental error of even the smallest fraction of a millimeter can affect a person’s vision. These tiniest of flaws result in a person being nearsighted, farsighted, or having astigmatism. In order to optimize your vision you may need glasses or contacts.

Nearsightedness
If you can read a book or work at a computer for hours and see with ease but need glasses to focus on objects far away you likely have nearsightedness. Myopia, also known as nearsightedness, affects about 25% of the population. Distant objects appear fuzzy and out of focus but objects up close are easy to focus on. There can be several causes for myopia, such as the shape of your cornea, having a longer eyeball than normal (yes that can really happen), and the placement and shape of your eye’s lens. These slight errors make objects appear in front of your retina rather than on, so a blurred image is sent to the brain.

Farsightedness
Are you squinting to read this right now? Does reading give you a headache from squinting and trying to focus? If objects look blurry up close but distant objects, like road signs, aren’t a problem to focus on then you may have farsightedness. Hyperopia, also known as farsightedness, affects about 10% of the population. The causes of hyperopia are similar to those of myopia, where the shape of the cornea, the placement and shape of your eye’s lens, and a shorter than usual eyeball are all causes.

Presbyopia
Sorry, nothing lasts forever, not the Grateful Dead, not Elvis, not summer, and not your perfect vision. Presbyopia is the loss of perfect vision with age. When we are younger our eye’s lenses are able to change shape to account for objects that are close to the eye. Over time the ciliary body inside our eyes begins to lose its ability to contract. The result is that the lens becomes thicker and more rigid. This is why many elderly people have to hold newspapers and books far away in order to read: time for glasses.

Astigmatism
A normal cornea is in the shape of a partial sphere where all directions are equally curved. For some people the angles of the cornea or lens may be steeper than others. This doesn’t allow for images to fall on the retina so these images are seen by the brain as blurry.

If any of these conditions sound like something that is bothering you then you definitely want to set up an appointment for an eye exam. Contact Vision Pro to set up  an appointment and see the world with perfect vision!

How the Human Eye Sees

The eyes have been said to be ‘windows to our souls.’ Although more aptly put they are image receptors. Regardless, they are incredible sensory organs, especially once you consider how they work. The human eye is capable of seeing the flame of a candle from miles away or a speck of dust on a table. Our eyes allow us to see thousands of colors, perceive objects in three dimensions, and pick up on the slightest of movements.

The human eye is spherical in shape and despite being a small organ it is quite complex. For perfect vision every structure of the eye must work correctly, even the slightest error, a fraction of a millimeter, can affect our sight. If everything is in working order, the eye will capture light, focus that light, and then relay that image to the brain to process what is taking place.

             

When we look at an object rays of light are illuminating it. These rays are reflected off the object and into our eyes. The first structure of the eye that light hits is the cornea where light is refracted and brought into focus. After these rays exit the cornea they travel deeper into the eye to the iris and the pupil. Here the iris blocks rays of light from going deeper into the eye while the rays of light that enter the pupil are processed. Your pupil will contract or expand depending on environmental conditions. If it is bright and sunny your pupils will contract to restrict light entering the eye. It if is dark your pupils expand to allow more light to enter the eye.

Once light has been processed by the pupil it reaches the lens. Here the rays of light are refracted to bring them into focus more.  The light then continues on to the vitreous cavity, and then into further focus on the retina. Within the retina different photo receptors are stimulated by different wavelengths of light. Those that are activated send their signals to the optic nerve, which then relays a signal to your brain. Then your brain processes this information.

If you consider all the amazing things that take place within our complex eyes in order to see you can understand how important it is to receive proper eye care services and products. If it has been awhile since you have had an eye examination or it might be time to get new glasses or contacts call Vision Pro today to set up an appointment.