July 19th, 2007 by Dr. Val Jones in News
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There was a very interesting case report in the New England Journal of Medicine this week. A 25 year old woman went bungee jumping and wound up with sudden decreased vision in one eye. As it turned out, the sudden yank of the bungee cord (while being upside down) caused an increase in pressure in her eye ball (kind of the way the Heimlich maneuver can), and broke one of the blood vessels in the back of her eye. Luckily she had surgery to remove the blood and recovered nearly normal vision in that eye a week later.
If I ever felt tempted to go bungee jumping, this case cured my curiosity. How about you?This post originally appeared on Dr. Val’s blog at RevolutionHealth.com.
May 29th, 2007 by Dr. Val Jones in News
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There’s a new contact lens solution scare this week. Last year it was fungus, this year it’s parasites. Apparently there has been an increase in amoebic infections in the eyes of those who use a type of moisturizing contact lens solution. These amoebas are pretty common (and relatively harmless?) in the water supply, but put them in your eyes with a few moisturizing drops and you’ve got yourself a dangerous infection that can even result in blindness. Scientists are puzzled as to why this mixture might increase the risk for infection – some speculate that the moisturizing chemical sticks to the amoebas and keeps them in the eye (rather than having them drop out in your tears). But at this point, no one really knows why there have been increased infection rates, or what the contact lens solution has to do with it.
I guess my advice would be – never put tap water in your eyes or on your contact lenses, and switch to a different brand of contact lens solution than Advanced Medical Optics, Inc.’s Complete Moisture Plus until further notice.This post originally appeared on Dr. Val’s blog at RevolutionHealth.com.
