Sunglasses are an important part of the accessories you use in summer or any time of the year. They help you to look fashionable and stylish and also make a pretty good style statement. But is that the only job of sunglasses? Or do they have something more to them? Here are a few reasons why sunglasses are more than just a style statement:


1. Decrease in eye problems: Generally, you use sunscreen to protect your skin from the Sun s glare. Similarly, sunglasses protect your eyes from the harmful UV rays of the sun. It is extremely important for you to protect the eyes so that the harmful UV rays cannot enter the sensitive eye tissue and harm them. If you do not use sunglasses, then you have a higher chance of damaging your eye tissue than a person who uses them regularly. Bear in mind that the strong UV rays can cause serious permanent damage to your eyes.


2. Protection from other environmental components: Not only is the sun harmful to your eyes, but also the wind can be extremely dangerous for them. Dirt, sand, dust particles can fly into your eyes even when just a breeze is blowing. On a windy day, damage can be much more. If you are wearing sunglasses when out on a windy day, they act like a shield to your eyes against the wind and the particles,which might enter your eye.


3.  Helps clear vision: It s often difficult to have a clear vision when out in the Sun. The bright sunlight doesn t give you the clarity in vision. Without protection, you will have reduced vision as the bright glare of the Sun might cause you discomfort in your eyes and limit your vision as you will have to squint in the bright light.


4. Helps prevent aging: Although it might sound a bit surprising, but wearing sunglasses actually helps in prevent aging. The bright glare of the sun causes you to squint and this causes the age lines to appear. So, if you wear sunglasses and your eyes are protected from the bright sunlight, then you will not be squinting anymore, and hence it will not cause the age lines to appear before time.


So now, before you think that sunglasses only make you look good, think again about how they actually do much more than that.

4 Reasons Why Sunglasses are More than Just a Style Statement

Glaucoma is a group of diseases that causes damage to your eye's optic nerve and gets worse over time. The optic nerve is a bundle of millions of nerve fibres which carry visual impulse from the retina at the back of eye to the brain. The increased eye pressure, called intraocular pressure, can damage the optic nerve and fasten the natural nerve fibre loss. Since nerve cells can't regenerate this damage is permanent and irreversible.

Without treatment, glaucoma can cause total permanent blindness within a few years. Because most people with glaucoma have no early symptoms or pain from this increased pressure, it is important to see your eye doctor regularly so that glaucoma can be diagnosed early and treated before significant functional visual loss occurs.

If you are over age 40 and have a family history of glaucoma, you should have a complete eye exam with an eye doctor every one to two years. If you have any risk factors, you may need to visit your eye doctor more frequently.

What are the symptoms of glaucoma?

For most people, there are usually few or no symptoms of glaucoma. The first sign of glaucoma is often the loss of peripheral or side vision, which can go unnoticed until late in the disease. This is why glaucoma is often called the" sneak thief of vision" or" silent thief of eye sight.

If you have any of the following symptoms, seek immediate medical care:

Seeing halos around lights
Vision loss
Redness in the eye
Eye that looks hazy (particularly in infants)
Nausea or vomiting
Pain in the eye
Narrowing of vision (tunnel vision)
Risk factors-

There are several risk factors, which may lead to glaucoma, such as

Age of the individual
Ethnicity- african, caribbean, hispanics and asians are at higher risk
Increased eye pressure or iop history of glaucoma in family or relatives
Presence of myopia or hyperopia
Previous eye injuries
Use of steroids- as injections, tablets, eye or ear drops or ointments or protein supplements for muscle building in gyms or inhalers
Previous history of anemia
Individuals conditions affecting blood flow like hypertension, diabetes or high blood sugar, migraine etc are also at risk.
Treatment-

The treatment for glaucoma relies on the nature and seriousness of every case. Generally, glaucoma cannot be totally cured, but it can be controlled. Eye drops, pills, laser strategies, and means of surgery are utilized to maintain and prevent further harm from happening. Talk to your eye doctor to find out if you are at risk of developing glaucoma.

Are You at a Risk of Glaucoma? What You Need to Know?

If you have got diabetes, then it is quite natural that you will soon face acute eye troubles. This is the reason diabetic patients are always suggested to keep their blood sugar levels controlled so that eye troubles can be easily avoided. Thorough medical check-up is required in order to detect conditions of the eyes. Some of the commonest eye troubles occurring due to diabetes are cataract, glaucoma, blurry vision, diabetic retinopathy and others. 

List of eye diseases caused by diabetes

1. Diabetic retinopathy: when the retina's smallest blood vessels get severely damaged due to increased blood sugar, then this kind of eye condition occurs. Early detection of this eye condition can save your eyes, but if it is too late, then nothing can be done, and it might even lead to blindness.

2. Cataract: fogging or clouding condition can bring this kind of condition and this can only be corrected by wearing proper corrective lenses. However, if you fail to control diabetes, then in spite of wearing glasses, your eye condition might get deteriorated day-by-day. Glared or blurred vision is the most common symptom in this regard. 

3. Glaucoma: when the eye fluid is not drained properly, then this kind of eye trouble occurs. In fact, eye pressure increases to a great extent as a result of which delicate eye nerves can get severely damaged. The blood vessels of the eyes can get clogged causing greater interruption in vision. Medicines can make aqueous humor to get drained in a proper manner, and thus you should go for a proper eye check-up so that you can acquire the requisite medicines. Some popular symptoms of glaucoma are headaches, eye aches, blurred vision, watery eyes, vision loss and others. 

4. Diabetic macular edema: this eye disease mainly occurs in the advanced stage of diabetic retinopathy. Macula is nothing, but the most delicate part of retina and when it gets swollen, then you might face this eye trouble. Only medications can help you to get rid of the same and thus immediate medical help is needed. 

5. Blurry vision: though this is quite a small and temporary eye issue for diabetic patients, but this condition might turn into a serious one if you neglect to correct the same in the very beginning. You might even face blindness due to negligence of this trouble. Also, fluctuating sugar-levels should be stabilized so that this kind of trouble can be easily tackled.

Eye Problems Caused by Diabetes

Glaucoma is a serious eye condition in which the optic nerve gets damaged and the situation gets worse over time. If untreated, individuals may go permanently blind. Most individuals, with glaucoma, have no previous symptoms or warning signs of this disorder and this is the reason why it is important to have regular eye check-ups.

Causes of glaucoma
Eyes have a liquid called aqueous humor. This fluid flows out of the eyes through mesh like channels for proper lubrication of the eye. However, there can be situations in which these channels may get blocked. In such a case, there would be a build-up of this liquid, thereby causing an increase in fluid pressure. This is usually a major cause of glaucoma. Although there has been no elaborate evidence of what exactly causes this blockage, doctors have noticed that this can be inherited.

Other less common causes include:

Any sort of blunt injury or chemical injury to the eye
Blocking of blood vessels inside the eye
Other inflammatory conditions
Improper eye surgery
Types of glaucoma
There are mainly two kinds of glaucoma than can occur:

Open-angle glaucoma: This is the most common kind of glaucoma and is also called wide-angled glaucoma. In this kind, the tubular meshwork through which the liquid flow occurs is normal. However, the fluid flow isn t the way it should be.
Angle-closure glaucoma: This is also known as acute glaucoma or chronic angle closure. In this case, the liquid is not able to drain properly because of the angle between the iris and the cornea being too narrow, thus causing the iris to be in the way. This can cause a sudden build-up of pressure, thereby leading to chronic glaucoma.
Facts about glaucoma

This disorder usually has no previous signs or symptoms and occurs all of a sudden.
This disorder mainly affects individuals above 40 years of age.
Glaucoma can be inherited.
People with diabetes have chances of suffering from glaucoma.
If not treated early, it may lead to permanent blindness.
Symptoms of glaucoma
Usually there aren t many symptoms to warn people about this disorder. However, one of the first signs is definitely losing peripheral or side vision. Other symptoms might include

Chronic vision loss
Visibility of halo around lights
Narrowed vision
Glaucoma is treated by any of the three methods:

Prescription eye drops in order to reduce eye fluid formation, thereby resulting in outflow increase
Laser surgery
Microsurgery

Glaucoma - A Complete Guide on It!

Do your eyes get tired easily? Do they look sore or sandy? If yes, then it s time to worry for your eyes now. There is every possibility that you might have developed a dry eye. It is a common disorder of the eyes that occurs due to aging. It causes discomfort as you end up feeling scratchy or gritty all the time. The eyes turn red and have a burning sensation and feel itchy. Things get worse when you tend to stress your eyes by spending extra hours in front of the computer or read texts. In fact, the discomfort increases as the blinking frequency of the eyes get reduced.

One may also develop blurred vision due to dry eyes. An individual feels as if there is some particle inside his or her eyes, but finds nothing. Though this condition doesn t lead to very dangerous consequences, it is always a wise decision to seek medical help. The medical term for this condition is keratoconjunctivitis sicca. Once you develop dry eye, there is always a tendency to get it back again. But, the good news is that it can be treated to get some relief.

Causes
Dry eye is caused due to problems related to tear formation. When we blink our eyes, a film is formed over it. This thin layer is called a tear film. Tear film is responsible for clarity in vision. In case, enough tear is not produced, one tends to suffer from dry eyes. It is mainly caused due to ageing. 
If you don't produce enough tears, if your tears aren't of the right quality or your tears aren't spread across the front of your eye properly then you may develop dry eye. The glands producing tear or the tear film get inactive with age. Sometimes, the tear film is also affected by certain medicines, contact lenses, diseases like rheumatoid arthritis and Sjogren's syndrome.

Treatment
Dry eyes caused due to ageing cannot be cured completely. You must see a doctor for treatment but there are no permanent cure remedies. However, there are ways to help you get some relief. Here are the ways:

Try to increase the natural tears: There are certain home-based remedies to get some relief from the problem. You can keep the temperature of your room lower to get rid of the symptoms of dry eyes. Higher temperature leads to the evaporation of the tears. You can keep a humidifier in your room that adds more moisture to the air inside the room. This prevents drying up of the eye due to evaporation of tears. It is also found that when one blinks less, tear formation is reduced. The blinking is reduced while working on computers and reading. One must be careful while doing such things and try and blink as many times as possible.
Use eye drops: One needs to use eye drops called  artificial tears.  They are an alternative to the natural tears. If usual drops are not effective, gel-based thicker drops or overnight ointments are prescribed.
Block tear ducts: Another way of tackling dry eyes is by reducing the drainage of tears. For this, the tear ducts are blocked by plastic pieces called punctual plugs. The process is termed as punctal occlusion.
Take food supplements: Certain oils and Omega 3 and 6 are known to be beneficial in treating dry eyes. Include these supplements in your diet to keep your eyes healthy.

Dry Eye Syndrome - 4 Ways to Treat It!

While it's assumed that numerous eye injuries are inflicted at work, just about the same number of them may happen while at home. Luckily, most eye wounds are preventable. Find ways to prevent eye injuries, as the eyes are very sensitive and delicate.
Here is a list of some of the most common eye injuries and tips on how to prevent them:

1. A lot of eye injuries happen from dust particles entering the eyes, causing itching and burning sensation. Protective glasses should be worn when doing any kind of activity in a dusty area with flying particles.

2. Pencils, scissors, forks, knives and all similar sharp objects can cause a serious eye injury. Day to day household items like bungee cords, wire coat hangers, rubber bands and fishhooks are capable of causing eye injuries. You must always remain aware and super conscious while using such objects.

3. While performing activities such as dusting, sweeping or lawn mowing, make sure to protect your 
eyes well as dust is involved.

4. Children are very curious by nature. Thus, all hazardous stuff like fertilizers, acids should be kept away from their reach. These contain harmful chemicals, which may inflict fatal damage to the eyes.

5. Cooking powder and spices like chili powder can cause injury to the eye. Always wash your hands 
after using these items, so that you don't harm the eyes if you by chance rub them with your hands.

6. Precautions should be taken while dealing with heat or boiling water or oil. They may spill and cause damage to the eyes.

7. Secure floor coverings and railings. On the off chance that a kid or elderly man lives in your home, use a safety gate at the top and base of stairs, and consider covering sharp furniture edges and corners with a padding material.

8. While travelling in a car, abrupt jerking or breaks may cause the head to bump and cause injury to the eye. Always put on your seat belt and do not allow children to sit in the front of a car.

9. Many modern toys, which are very attractive have got sharp edges because of their fancy design. Abstain children from playing with these kinds of toys.

10.  Laser pointers, a common fun gadget for children is very harmful and causes permanent damage to the retina. Stay away from laser pointers.

11. Wear eye gear to protect your eyes during sports activities. Also wear goggles during swimming as chlorine in swimming pool water damages the eyes.

Eye injuries may happen out of nowhere. You must always remain alert to avoid eye injuries.

Most Common Eye Injuries That Happen and Prevention Tips

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