Eye Disease Diagnosis & Management

The trouble with conjunctivitis, also known as pink eye, is that there are several causes. Most parents have had to contend with an outbreak of conjunctivitis at their child’s school (it is highly contagious) and have become familiar with the signs and symptoms.

However, if you self-diagnose and start treatment, you could actually be inhibiting your recovery, rather than accelerating it. The only way to get a guaranteed diagnosis is through a professional eye exam. If you live in the Chestermere area or nearby, visit our practice and we can determine if the cause is bacterial, viral, or allergic.i

Cataracts are the gradual clouding of your natural lens with age, leading to blurry vision. Cataracts develop over time, quite naturally, as a result of aging, but several risk factors exist which could increase your chances of developing them at an earlier age.

• Risk factors
  • Family history of cataracts
  • Smoking
  • Excessive alcohol consumption
  • Overexposure to UV light
  • Side effects from medications (eg. prednisone) or diseases (eg. diabetes)
  • Eye injury
• Symptoms
  • Difficulty seeing clearly
  • Trouble with colour vision
  • Sensitivity to light
  • Double vision
  • Difficulty seeing at night

Cataract surgery is one of the most heavily practiced procedures in North America and boasts extremely high success rates.

Glaucoma is one of those diseases which, if left undiagnosed, will slowly work away at your sight without giving you the slightest idea of its presence. Because it targets your peripheral vision, it’s highly unlikely that you will be made aware of the vision loss until it is quite pronounced. However, we can diagnose glaucoma extremely early and save your sight.

The trouble with glaucoma is that it doesn’t have any symptoms. That said, there are numerous risk factors which can heighten your likelihood of developing glaucoma:

• Elevated eye pressure
• Older age
• Myopia
• Diabetes
• Ethnicity
• Family history of glaucoma

Annual eye exams allow us to diagnose glaucoma early, before vision loss occurs in many cases.

Age-related macular degeneration (AMD) is characterized by damage to the macula, the center of the retina responsible for central vision. It shows very few symptoms during its early stages, and by the time you notice the effect on your vision, your sight will be at least partially compromised.

AMD has two main forms: dry and wet.

• Dry AMD is more common and is generally the less severe of the two. Dry AMD occurs when drusen (small lipid deposits) accumulate underneath the macula. Though there is currently no cure for dry AMD, progression can be slowed by consuming a nutritionally balanced diet and select nutritional supplements.
• Wet AMD progresses quickly, causing new blood vessels to form under your macula. However, these new blood vessels are typically quite weak, and leak blood and other fluids. This leakage can permanently damage the macula. Wet AMD can be treated using intraocular injections, which can halt its progression, but can’t reverse any vision loss that has already occurred.