Glasses: the New Political Tool?

Repub­li­can strate­gist Karl Rove recent­ly implied that Hillary Clin­ton had brain dam­age because of her glass­es that she wore in 2013 after a fall led to a blood clot. He said “…we need to know what’s up with that”). Well, all I can say is please don’t let Karl Rove guide your under­stand­ing of the human brain. Her glass­es had some­thing … Con­tin­ue read­ing

Posted in Dr. Ben's Blog, News

Apples and Oranges

Glass­es are offi­cial­ly IN! I don’t think any­one would dis­agree with that point. Frame styles from yes­ter­year are mount­ing huge come­backs (kind of like those golf shirts with the lit­tle croc­o­diles on them). For­tu­nate­ly, the lens optics of yes­ter­year are history.….……or maybe not.….…… Pre­scrip­tion glass­es are heav­i­ly adver­tised at extreme­ly cheap prices on TV, the inter­net, and on bill­boards. There are, … Con­tin­ue read­ing

Posted in Dr. Ben's Blog, Eyes & Art

Omega 3’s Don’t Help Your Eyes? Not So Fast…

Last week, the much antic­i­pat­ed first round of results from AREDS 2 were pub­lished. AREDS stands for “Age-Relat­ed Eye Dis­ease Study”, a cross-sec­­tion­al, mul­ti­cen­ter, years-long set of stud­ies set out to deter­mine whether the pro­gres­sion of age-relat­ed eye dis­eases, such as mac­u­lar degen­er­a­tion could be curbed by the intake of cer­tain nutraceu­ti­cals. The orig­i­nal AREDS results taught us that … Con­tin­ue read­ing

Posted in Dr. Ben's Blog, Eye Health

iTips For Spring Training

So, I saw this patient last week who was blind in his left eye. Oth­er than a con­gen­i­tal form of blind­ness in that eye, his ocu­lar and visu­al health were essen­tial­ly nor­mal. He asked me why I pre­scribed glass­es for him, and it led to a great and mean­ing­ful dis­cus­sion regard­ing eye safe­ty. First of all, I pre­scribed glass­es with poly­car­bon­ate lens­es to … Con­tin­ue read­ing

Posted in Dr. Ben's Blog, Eye Health

No Marijuana For Glaucoma Any Time Soon

Ok, so we’ve all heard the anec­do­tal tales of the guy who gets to smoke mar­i­jua­na to treat his glau­co­ma, but is there any truth to this wives tale? The answer is a resound­ing “sort of, but not real­ly”. The sto­ry goes like this: some­one some­where fig­ured out that some­thing in hemp low­ers intraoc­u­lar (eye) pres­sure. So, a series of … Con­tin­ue read­ing

Posted in Dr. Ben's Blog, Eye Health

You’re Talking To Me With Your Eyes

It’s been said that eyes have an abil­i­ty to speak with­out the need for words. This con­cept was pop­u­lar in the art genre even pri­or to the Renais­sance prop­er, when artists made great strides in mas­ter­ing the eyes of their sub­jects to con­vey desired emo­tions. The Mona Lisa is the quin­tes­sen­tial “smirk­er” as she eyes you as … Con­tin­ue read­ing

Posted in Dr. Ben's Blog, Eyes & Art

Pleased To Announce…

Casel­la Eye Cen­ter is pleased to announce that we are now a provider for Care­Cred­it, a flex­i­ble pay­ment solu­tion for eye exams, glass­es, and con­tact lens­es. Over 7 mil­lion patients cur­rent­ly use Care­Cred­it, and we’re proud to be a provider for them! Unex­pect­ed expens­es come up every now and then, and, whether it’s an eye emer­gency or that design­er pair of … Con­tin­ue read­ing

Posted in Dr. Ben's Blog, News, Uncategorized

Making It All Count

The visu­al sys­tem is a com­plex and mul­ti­fac­to­r­i­al enig­ma, parts of which we are just begin­ning to explore. When we refract patients (check them for new glass­es or con­tact lens pre­scrip­tions), we take pre­cise mea­sure­ments of their visu­al acu­ity, func­tion, and defo­cus (among oth­er aspects). The val­ues we come up with are all impor­tant, but what’s real­ly impor­tant … Con­tin­ue read­ing

Posted in Dr. Ben's Blog, News

Transitions Now Better Than Ever

Tran­si­tions lens­es are light-acti­­vat­ed lens­es that turn dark in bright light. This tech­nol­o­gy has been around for sev­er­al years, but now Tran­si­tions lens­es are avail­able for vir­tu­al­ly all walks of life, from avid out­doors peo­ple to those who spend most of the day inside. Tran­si­tions lens­es pro­tect from UV radi­a­tion, as well as pro­vide a com­fort­able light lev­el … Con­tin­ue read­ing

Posted in Dr. Ben's Blog, Eye Health, News

When Time’s a Factor

The advent of Spec­tral Domain Opti­cal Coher­ence Tomog­ra­phy, or SD-OCT, has giv­en us the abil­i­ty to per­form in vivo ( or “in the body”) his­tol­ogy of the tis­sues of the human eye with a res­o­lu­tion down to just a few microns — a tremen­dous feat that has led to key devel­op­ments in the under­stand­ing of cer­tain ocu­lar dis­eases. This case … Con­tin­ue read­ing

Posted in Dr. Ben's Blog, Eye Health