Orlando Eye Doctor: How healthy are your eyes?

According to William Shakespeare, ‘The eyes are the window to the soul’, but for the Optometrist at Lake Nona Eye , the eyes are a window to your health. Just by looking into your eye pupils an Eye Doctor can detect many health problems. Some of them are rare and serious, here are four diseases that can be detected in your eyes and how they can affect your overall health.

Gyrate Atrophy: Affecting the thin coating of the eye and retina, or choroid, is an inherited disorder that leads to progressive vision loss. Symptoms include decreased vision, it may begin in childhood as myopia, or nearsightedness, night blindness or difficulty seeing in low light and loss of peripheral or side vision and overtime tunnel vision and clouding lens.

Coats Disease: A rare disease in the eye retina, according to Webmd, “characterized by abnormal development of the blood vessels in the retina.

The retina is a nerve-rich tissue lining the back of the eye that transmits light images to the brain, which allows a person to see. Therefore affected individuals may experience loss of vision due to changes in the retina and, in severe cases, retinal detachment.”

Retinoblastoma: A potentially life threatening cancer that causes the pupil of the eye to appear white when light shines into it, instead of red. Symptoms include eye redness, pain or the eyes appear to look in different directions. It can affect one or both eyes and can spread to other areas of the body.

Best Disease: Leads to the loss of central vision, also called vitelliform macular degeneration. Affecting the macula in the back of the eye, causing problems in the central vision. Symptoms include, difficulty reading small print, straight lines look distorted or wavy, and trouble seeing fine details.

We use our eyes from the time we wake up in the morning until we go to be at night, they are constantly processing information, it’s hard to imagine life without them. That’s why it’s so important to take care of them. Contact Dr. Ward and the professional team at Lake Nona Eye Care for an appointment today.