With this type of bump, a picture is worth a thousand words in describing appearance.  If your eye looks like this, you have a pterygium.

A pterugium this size likely is affecting vision and may require surgery for this patient to see clearly.  via

And if you have a pterygium, likely you have noticed it and already asked for advice on what it is--a pterygium is hard to miss, even in its early stages!  It looks like a mass of blood vessels growing onto the surface of the eye, almost like the white of your eye is overtaking the clear corneal tissue.  They can be large or they can be small and non-progressive, but they are very challenging to remove once they begin to form.

Imagine navigating your daily world without being able to see.  How could you get dressed in the morning?  How could you safely cross the street?  How could you even recognize the loved ones around you?

OrCam sits on the temple of your glasses, providing minimal bulk and disruption.  In the past low vision aids have often been large and unwieldy, creating issues with comfort and even with patients being able to adjust to their use.

OrCam is activated by finger pointing, making the design user friendly.  Most older devices have required head pointing and spotting through a magnified lens, while the OrCam utilizes image recognition software that has been utilized in security systems for years.

People with significant vision loss have to deal with these issues every single day, and luckily companies around the world are innovating ways to improve their lives.  One such company is OrCam, a start-up company that has launched a highly advanced camera system with image recognition software that is so non-intrusive that it can easily sit on the temples of your glasses (much like the design of Google Glass).  The software is programmed to "read" any text, recognize colors, common objects, and can even be programmed to recognize faces.  The camera's image recognition software connects to a small earpiece that the patient wears inside his ear (similar in design to an ear bud) that will translate the image into its English description.  You can point your camera at the closed caption TV screen and "watch" your favorite show as OrCam reads the words from the screen.  It can tell you how much money you are holding in your hand.  It can tell you if you are holding your credit card or your driver's license.  It can tell you if that light is green or red.  Or is that kid playing in the yard your grandson or a neighbor's kid?

Believe it or not, this isn't a technology that we are dreaming up, years away from the market.  You can purchase it now for just $2500 off their website.  Due to high demand, they are working to fill currently placed orders by the end of 2013.  If you or someone you love is vision impaired, consider scheduling them to see a Low Vision specialist to discuss all the products on the market that can make life easier.  OrCam appears to be easy to use and easy to fit, and your optometrist is a trained vision provider than can help you learn how to use these low vision aids and write the proper glasses prescription to maximize the use of the technology.

It wouldn't be fitting to wrap up the Eyedolatry Sunglasses Initiative of 2013 without featuring Dr. G over at Eye See Euphoria. The man knows how to style a pair of glasses, be it with ophthalmics in his daily wear or when he is sporting suns on the beaches of the Dominican Republic.  Cue the photo gallery:

Versace Sunglasses

Maybe a new campaign in the works?

As an optometrist, Dr. G always speaks about the protective health benefits of sunglasses on his blog, but he also writes about styling men's and women's frames for you fashion readers out there.  If you are interested in learning more about current designer frames on the market, his website is a great launching point!


I hope that our feature of local bloggers has inspired you to reach for your sunglasses this month. Whether you are buying designer labels or sunglasses over the counter, just remember that those lenses are medical devices and you are protecting yourself and being fashionable with the summer's latest trends at the same time. Never compromise on your own safety standards with sunglasses -- make sure your lenses are at least 98% UV blocking; in today's market there is never an excuse to sacrifice protection for style!

I had a great email question in my inbox this month so I decided to devote an entire post to it (keep those questions coming!).

Why does my doctor turn the lights low when checking my distance vision when I want to see sharply in daylight?  And then when they check my reading vision they use a bright light, while my problem is that I have trouble seeing to read in dark places, like in restaurants to look at menus?  

This is a question that a lot of my own patients ask, so I know there are a ton of people out there that have been wondering the same thing.  Here's your chance to have this mystery explained!

Checking Distance Vision in Low Lighting Creates the Most Challenging Environment

Is it easier to drive in daylight or during the night?  What about on a bright day or when it is raining?  Most everyone will agree that low lighting is very difficult on their eyes' distance vision.  That's one simple reason why your doctor typically uses a dimly lit room.  They want to challenge your visual system to find a prescription that works for all of life's difficult visual environments.  There are some technical reasons that make low lighting important too, however:

Phoropter via

In dim lighting your pupil dilates, and your eye muscles that control focusing relax.  When you are behind the phoropter, your doctor needs to keep you from squinting and over focusing to get a true reading, and lowering the lights is one way to achieve that.  Now your doctor is going to use several other tactics to prevent your eyes from over focusing too.  When I perform a refraction (getting your prescription) I always make sure I  go through a series of blurring and then clearing steps to make sure the eyes aren't over focusing.  There is a reason your doctor spends four years in optometry school -- they are being educated on how to make sure they always give you the best prescription without overworking your eyes, even if you don't answer 1 or 2  "correctly" if you will.

Checking Reading Vision in Good Lighting Gives the Truest Prescription

In bright light, or in near focusing conditions, the pupil constricts (letting less light into the eye) Pupil constriction is tied with the eye's ability to focus at near.  That's why we read better with light than in the dark, no matter the prescription of glasses or contact lenses.

Have you ever tried to read in dim lighting?  It's hard, right.  The simple answer is that we check reading vision with light because it is next to impossible to achieve good vision to read in the dark, even if you are a kid.  The results just won't be very good, no matter what prescription we give you in glasses.

There is a technical reason to explain this, of course.  Everyone sees more poorly at night; that's because in dim lighting your pupil is larger. The pupil opening is a muscle, and when it is smaller that means it is contracting; and this contraction is inherently tied with your eye muscles focusing.  When we focus on something up close, we naturally have a constriction reaction to the pupil too.  If I want to determine your true near focusing ability, I need to create pupil constriction, and that's why lighting on the reading chart is important.  I want to create an environment where I can test your eye's natural focusing ability, and then see what prescription you need to aid that ability.  If I have your focusing system relaxed (as in dim or no light), everyone is going to have difficulty seeing to read and prefer stronger reading glasses. Remember, we use low lighting to test distance vision because we don't want to initiate your eye muscles to work.   When I check reading vision, I DO want your eyes muscles to work, so I can tell how strong they are.  That is why I need light!  As we age, our eyes are naturally losing their focusing ability (called presbyopia) so it is ALWAYS better to read with light if you want to be able to see what you are reading.  There is no way with any pair of glasses to get you to read as well in the dark as you do in light, because your pupil is not going to constrict as much, and your focusing system is not going to kick in as much!  We check reading vision with a light on because for most people, that is the only way they are going to see the 20/20 line (or anything close to it).

In a dim restaurant and need to read something, but having more trouble than reading glasses can alleviate in full?   Try using the flashlight app on your smart phone for a quick fix!

Feel free to post more questions regarding this here, and I will do my best to provide more technical answers if desired!

Time for another local blogger that is truly embracing the message here with the Eyedolatry Sunglasses Initiative.  Christina at Carolina Charm  is a huge supporter of sun protection.  She even blogged about her daily routine to here.  What I love about featuring a lifestyle blogger like Christina is that she is showing us that sunglasses aren't just about fashion.  They are a product that she wears for function and protection, and fashion is the frosting on top.

When you are buying over-the-counter sunglasses, it can be hard to know how much protection you are really going to get from wearing them.  The truth is, not all sunglasses available for purchase really meet the standards required to protect you from diseases like macular degeneration or cancers, or painful conditions like photokeratitis (a sunburn of the eye).  Here's what you need to know before swiping your credit card:

• Know Your UV Coverage

  A sticker  like this verifies 100% UV Blocking, so make sure your OTC sunglasses have this sticker too! Via

If you haven't seen the styling of Megan from For All Things Lovely, you have probably never been on Pinterest before.  This South Carolina blogger dishes out fashion hits on a daily basis, and her sunglasses wardrobe makes even me envious.  I had such a hard time narrowing down her best sunglasses styles; this post is going to be very picture heavy.

What does she look for in sunglasses?

"I always go for sunnies that have a cat eye shape or a classic aviator.  I've tried to branch out so many times, but those shapes just seem to glam up any outfit.  And always, always have at least a little bit of gold or silver on them.  You can never go wrong with metallic's."

She is an expert at remixing her sunglasses to create casual and more sophisticated looks.  And she really knows how to fit the shape of her face with a designer's frame shape.  If you need sunglass inspiration, look no further.

Karen Walker Sunglasses

Ray Ban Sunglasses

Prada Sunglasses

Even her husband knows how to rock a good pair of sunglasses.