A cool trick to show people how bad your eyesight is

A cool trick to show people how bad your eyesight is

It can be challenging to demonstrate to someone how you actually see without your glasses. You can’t just give them your glasses to try on since their eye will automatically try to clear them up (and possibly kick start a headache). But it turns out pretty much every smartphone has built in feature that does an excellent job in truly capturing how bad you see when your glasses are off.

The Longest Sightline on Earth

The Longest Sightline on Earth

There is an old joke about people living out in the prairies being able to watch their dog run away for days.  Well if this is true (it isn't), then people living near the longest sightline on earth would be able to watch their dog run away for years.

Do Pinhole Glasses work?

Do Pinhole Glasses work?

Pinhole glasses operate on an optics principle that has been known for centuries.  By decreasing the aperture size, the depth of field increases (i.e. the distance between the maximum and the minimum an object appears clear).  It's the same reason people squint when they try to see better.  So glasses based on this principle do work, but there are some drawbacks that keep them from being replacements to regular glasses, although in desperate situations they can be very handy.

What are these guys looking for?

What are these guys looking for?

What could be of enough importance in 1962 that if it was lost, a regular season NHL game would halt mid-play and the players would drop down on their hands and knees and look for it?

Why Can't Humans See Reddish-Green?

Why Can't Humans See Reddish-Green?

Of all the things you've seen in your life, I promise you none of them were of the reddish-green colour.  Nor were any of them of the blueish-yellow hue.  Some scientists refer to these two colours as the forbidden colours.  But why cant we see them?

The Zombie Parasite

The Zombie Parasite

Every so often I come across a patient who has vision loss as the result of a parasitic infection.  The parasite in question is usually Toxoplasmosis gondii, and it can cause significant damage to the human retina.  But that may not even be the most terrifying trait of the parasite that is nicknamed "The Zombie Parasite".

4 out of 5 people who are blind don't need to be

4 out of 5 people who are blind don't need to be

Clean your furnace air ducts.  Get teeth cleaned twice.  Get approximately 10 haircuts.  These are things that come at a modest annual expense that many of us do every year.  Why? Because maintenance is a good form of prevention.  So why then does the average person go 4 years between eye checkups?   

 

Dont sit so close to the TV?

Dont sit so close to the TV?

We've all been told to avoid it, but is sitting too close to the TV actually bad for the eyes?   

The great carrot myth

The great carrot myth

Fairly regularly at the end of an eye exam, a patient will say "Or maybe I should just eat more carrots?".  I usually force a half-hearted laugh and a tepid agreement before explaining that Kale is actually what they should be consuming, and a little look back into life in WW2 Britain would explain where the carrot myth began.

My eye is twitching

My eye is twitching

Eyelid twitches are very annoying. And very common. The vast majority of them are completely benign and harmless. The treatment of them is usually just reassurance and cutting down on stress, however there in an anecdotal treatment that may work, although not clinically tested: quinine.