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Blocked tear ducts are also known as nasolacrimal duct obstructions. It occurs when a membrane (a skin-like tissue) in the nose fails to open before birth, blocking part of the tear drainage system.

Common symptoms include:

• Excessive tearing
• Redness of the white part of the eye
• Painful swelling near the inside corner of the eye
• Crusting of the eyelids
• Mucus or pus discharge from the lids and surface of the eyes
• Blurred vision

If tears do not drain properly, they can collect inside the tear drainage system and spill over the eyelid onto the cheek. They can also become infected, which may lead to the development of conjunctivitis, commonly known as “pink eye.” You should contact your eye doctor if the discharge becomes thicker or changes color from white to yellow or green, or the white of the eye becomes red.

Contact us today to schedule an appointment to determine your individual eye health and create a treatment plan that works best for you and your family.

Cataracts occur when the natural lens in our eyes, which is meant to be clear, becomes cloudy and causes blurry, hazy, or less colorful vision.

Common symptoms include:

• Blurry vision
• Seeing double
• Being extra sensitive to light
• Having trouble seeing well at night or when light is limited
• Seeing colors as faded or yellowed

The most common cause of cataracts is age as the proteins within the lens breaks down over time. However, cataracts can also occur in children due to a genetic predisposition, a metabolic disorder, and trauma. Regardless of age, early detection and prompt treatment results in more positive outcomes for your eyes and vision.

Contact us today to schedule an appointment to determine your individual eye health and create a treatment plan that works best for you and your family.

One particular type of eye injury is a corneal abrasion, where the clear, front surface of the eye is scratched, scraped or cut. To detect a corneal abrasion, Dr. Piccione will use a special dye called fluorescein to illuminate the injury.

Common symptoms include:

• Pain when opening or closing the eye
• Feeling like something is in the eye
• Tearing
• Redness
• Sensitivity to light
• Blurred vision or loss of vision
• Headache

Treatment may include patching the injured eye to prevent eyelid blinking from irritating the injury, applying lubricating eyedrops or ointment to the eye to form a soothing layer between the eyelid and the abrasion, using antibiotics to prevent infection, dilating or widening the pupil to relieve pain, or wearing a special contact lens to help healing.

Contact us today to schedule an appointment to determine your individual eye health and create a treatment plan that works best for you and your family.

Diabetic eye disease occurs when high blood sugar levels cause damage to the blood vessels within the retina. The blood vessels can swell and leak, close and stop blood from passing through, or new, abnormal vessels can grow in the retina, all of which can cause vision loss.

The symptoms of diabetic eye disease include:

• Blurry vision
• Vision that shifts from blurry to clear
• An increased number of floaters
• Blank or dark fields in vision
• Poor night vision
• Colors appear faded or washed out

With diabetic eye disease, controlling your blood sugar is very important. Sometimes vision can even be brought back if good blood sugar levels are maintained. Other treatments include eye injections to reduce macular swelling, laser surgery to seal leaking blood vessels, and vitrectomy surgery to remove vitreous gel and blood from leaking vessels, allow light rays to focus on the retina again, and potentially remove scar tissue from the retina.

For more information and to schedule a comprehensive eye exam, give us a call today!

According to arecent survey, more than 90% of adults report using digital devices more than two hours a day. Additionally, the survey found that 72.5% of adults are unaware of the potential dangers of blue light to their eyes. Unfortunately, an increase in use of digital devices exposes the user to harmful blue light, which can cause digital eye strain.

Symptoms include:

• Red, dry, irritated eyes
• Blurred vision
• Eye fatigue
• Back, neck, and shoulder pain
• Headaches

A full, comprehensive eye exam is the first step to treating digital eye strain. Our doctors can recommend several ways to reduce eye strain according to your specific situation, including taking visual breaks, using proper blinking techniques, and correcting your posture while using spending time on social media or gaming.

Contact us today to schedule an appointment to determine your individual eye health and create a treatment plan that works best for you and your family.

Dry Eyes or Dry Eye Syndrome is a very common eye condition that affects millions of Americans. It is estimated that dry eyes affect up to 11% of people aged 30 to 60 years of age and 15% of those 65 years of age or older according to the International Task Force assembled by the Johns Hopkins University-Wilmer Eye Institute.

Common symptoms include:

• dryness
• itching
• burning
• irritation or grittiness
• redness
• blurry vision that gets clearer as you blink
• light sensitivity
• excessive tearing

Simply, dry eyes are caused by either a deficiency in the quantity or the quality of the tears or tear film. Fortunately, today eye care patients can benefit from better diagnostic procedures for dry eyes as well as more advanced dry eye treatments from eye doctors.

Contact us today to schedule an appointment to determine your individual eye health and create a treatment plan that works best for you and your family.

Glaucoma is a disease that damages your eye's optic nerve, which is usually due to fluid building up in the front part of your eye. The fluid build-up increases the pressure in your eye, damaging the optic nerve and causing loss of peripheral vision.

Types of glaucoma:

• Primary open-angle gluacoma, which is the most common type, happens gradually. Fluid builds up slowly when the eye is not draining fluid as it should. Eventually, the eye pressure builds and damages the optic nerve. With this gradual onset, there is no pain or initial vision changes.
• Angle-closure glaucoma (also known as closed-angle glaucoma or narrow-angle glaucoma) occurs when the iris, too close to the drainage angle, blocks the drain. When the drainage angle is blocked completely, the eye pressure rises very quickly and results in an acute attack, which should be treat as an eye emergency.

  The symptoms of an acute angle-closure glaucoma attack are:

  • Suddenly blurry vision
  • Severe eye pain
  • Headache
  • Nausea
  • Vomiting
  • Rainbow-colored rings or halos around lights occur in your vision

Though glaucoma damage cannot be reversed, medicine and surgery may help to stop further damage. Give us a call to schedule an appointment for a comprehensive eye exam today and asses your risk for glaucoma and other eye conditions.

Age-related macular degeneration is when a part of your retina, called the macula, is damaged, which causes the loss of central vision. Those afflicted cannot see fine details either close or far away, but your peripheral vision is still normal.

There are two types of age-related macular degeneration:

• Dry AMD is the most common form, as 80% percent of all diagnosed have the dry form. Dry AMD occurs when the macula gets thinner with age and tiny clumps of protein called drusen grow on the macula.
• Wet AMD is much more serious than dry AMD and occurs when new, abnormal blood vessels grow under the retina. When these vessels leak blood or other fluids, it causes scarring of the macula. Vision is lost at a faster rate with wet AMD.

Currently, there is no treatment for the dry form of AMD, but certain supplements have been shown to slow the effects of the condition. Anti-VEGF treatment, which is a treatment that involves the injection of medication into the eye, as well as laser surgery can be used to reduce the number and blood vessels in the retina and slow any blood vessel leakage for those suffering with wet AMD.

For more information, please contact our office and schedule and appointment today to discuss your eye health and an individualized treatment plan with our doctors.

Myopia, or nearsightedness, is a refractive error. This means that the eye does not properly bend (refract) light due to an eye that is longer than normal and a cornea that is too steep, which causes images seen by the eye to appear unclear.

Symptoms include:

• Eyestrain
• Headaches
• Squinting to see properly
• Difficulty seeing faraway objects

Myopia is diagnosed through a comprehensive eye examination. There are several treatments that our doctors will consider based on your individual eye health. The most common treatment is the use of eyeglasses or contact lenses to correct myopia, which correct the way your eyes refract light. Refractive surgery can correct myopia by surgical reshaping the cornea. Another way to reshape the cornea is through orthokeratology, which involves the use of a series of special, hard contact lenses that slowly reshape the cornea. Lastly, myopia can be treated using atropine drops, which can slow the progression of myopia.

Contact us today to schedule an appointment to determine your individual eye health and create a treatment plan that works best for you and your family.

Ocular emergencies covers a wide range of incidents and conditions that are treatable here at Lafayette Family Eye Care. Each incident or condition will have its own unique set of symptoms, which we are able to assess in order to diagnose and treat.

We treat the following ocular emergencies:

• Corneal or conjunctival abrasion
• Foreign body involving the cornea or conjunctiva
• Chemical burn around the eye or involving the eye
• Contusion of the eye from trauma
• Subconjunctival hemorrhage
• Hyphema (blood in the eye)
• Eyelid Lacerations
• Penetrating injury in the eye
• Sports-related eye injuries

Our high-resolution slit lamps, or microscopes, and equipment allow us to view the eye at the microscopic level, which allow our doctors and staff to thoroughly examine your eyes and create a treatment plan unique to your situation.

If you or a family member have suffered an injury or are experiencing an eye emergency, contact our office immediately to schedule an appointment.

Ptosis is a drooping of the upper eyelid, which restricts and can even block normal vision. It can affect one or both of the eyelids in children or adults, and is usually treated with surgery.

Common symptoms include:

• Drooping eyelid
• Patients may tip their head back in a chin-up position to see underneath the eyelid
• Patients may raise their eyebrows in an attempt to lift up their lids to see
• Development of amblyopia

Though the most common treatment for ptosis is surgery, it may not be necessary to treat the condition early in life if the condition is mild or moderate. Adult ptosis, on the other hand, is usually caused by the separation of the levator muscle tendon from the eyelid or as a complication of another disease involving the levator tendon and its nerve supply, such as diabetes. Multiple tests can be conducted to identify the cause of ptosis in adults, but the treatment is normally surgery regardless of the cause.

Contact us today to schedule an appointment to determine your individual eye health and create a treatment plan that works best for you and your family.

Refractive errors occur when your eye cannot refract light properly.

Types of refractive errors:

• Myopia (nearsightedness) occurs when the eye is longer than normal and the cornea is too steep or more curved, which results in light being refracted in front of the retina instead of on the retina itself. Close objects appear clearly, while distant objects appear blurry.
• Hyperopia (farsightedness) occurs when the eye is shorter than normal and the cornea is to flat, which results in the light being refracted behind the retina instead of on the retina itself. Distant objects appear clearly, while close objects appear blurry.
• Astigmatism (distorted vision) occurs when the cornea curves more one way than the other, resulting in a shape much like a football. Distorted vision is the result, which can blur near and distant objects. Astigmatisms are possible in conjunction with myopia and hyperopia.
• Presbyopia is the natural progression of the eye that eventually makes it difficult to read at close range. After age 40, the soft, flexible nature of the eye lens becomes more rigid, making it more difficult to read at close range. Presbyopia can occur in conjunction with myopia, hyperopia, or astigmatism.

Eyeglasses and contacts are the most common methods of correcting refractive errors. Refractive surgery is also an option to correct or improve vision, which adjusts your eye's ability to focus by reshaping the cornea or the front surface of the eye.

If you believe you are suffering with a refractive error and would like to discuss treatment options, give us a call today to schedule and appointment!

Strabismus is a visual defect in which the eyes are misaligned and point in different directions. One eye may look straight ahead, while the other eye turns inward, outward, upward, or downward. Though it is a common condition among children, with about 4% of all children in the United States diagnosed with the condition, it can also occur later life.

Most common types of strabismus are:

• Congenital Esotropia involves the eyes crossing toward the nose and is the most common type of strabismus in infants.
• Accommodative Esotropia usually occurs in children around age 2 or older and involves an inward turn when the child focuses the eyes to see clearly.
• Exotropia involves a turn outward, usually when focusing on distant objects.

In some cases, strabismus can be treated with eyeglasses. In other cases, the covering or patching of the strong eye will be used to increase the strength of the weaker eye and improve vision. Other treatments involve surgery in order to correct the unbalanced eye muscles. With surgery, glasses may still be required and more than one surgery may be necessary to fully correct the unbalanced eye muscles.

Contact us today to schedule an appointment to determine your individual eye health and create a treatment plan that works best for you and your family.