Latest / See Better without Glasses by Dr. Scott Spector / How to Reverse POOR Eyesight (At Any Age!)

Transcript

How to Reverse POOR Eyesight (At Any Age!) · See Better without Glasses by Dr. Scott Spector

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: Poor eyesight isn't caused by just one thing.
• 0:02
  SPEAKER_00: Most people just accept it.
• 0:03
  SPEAKER_00: Nobody ever tells them which part of the eye is actually causing it, and that's the part that decides what can be done about it.
• 0:08
  SPEAKER_00: I'm Dr.
• 0:09
  SPEAKER_00: Scott Spector, and I'm a board certified ophthalmologist with offices in Connecticut, Manhattan, and Westchester.
• 0:15
  SPEAKER_00: Most of my patients are people who are unhappy with their vision and they don't really understand what causes it.
• 0:20
  SPEAKER_00: Here's what I mean: two people can come in with exactly the same complaint.
• 0:24
  SPEAKER_00: The vision is blurry and they would like to see better.
• 0:26
  SPEAKER_00: One patient is a 30-year-old man who's wearing contact lenses in order to correct his vision.
• 0:31
  SPEAKER_00: The other is a 60-year-old woman who wears BIFO.
• 0:33
  SPEAKER_00: I do two completely different operations.
• 0:35
  SPEAKER_00: Same complaint, same desire, but two completely different situations.
• 0:39
  SPEAKER_00: Understanding the difference here is the whole point of this video.
• 0:43
  SPEAKER_00: Most people don't really know what is happening in their eye.
• 0:45
  SPEAKER_00: They just assume that getting stronger glasses every couple of years is the answer.
• 0:50
  SPEAKER_00: In reality, there are a variety of options that can be used to correct these problems.
• 0:54
  SPEAKER_00: So in this video, I'll take you through what actually causes poor eyesight, how to tell which one is yours, and exactly what I'd change for each.
• 1:02
  SPEAKER_00: I tell everyone that the eye is like a car.
• 1:04
  SPEAKER_00: There are engine issues and there are windshield issues.
• 1:06
  SPEAKER_00: The windshield is the front, everything behind it is the engine.
• 1:09
  SPEAKER_00: Start at the front and work back.
• 1:11
  SPEAKER_00: The first one is the cornea and the tear film that coats it.
• 1:14
  SPEAKER_00: I call that the windshield.
• 1:15
  SPEAKER_00: These two work in tandem to determine the focusing ability of the windshield.
• 1:19
  SPEAKER_00: The cornea is the clear dome that sits in front of the colored part of your eye.
• 1:23
  SPEAKER_00: In order to keep the windshield clear, we produce a thin layer of tears that spreads across the front of your eye.
• 1:28
  SPEAKER_00: This combined system provides most of the eye's focusing power.
• 1:32
  SPEAKER_00: That one surface or the windshield does more of your focusing than any other part of the eye.
• 1:37
  SPEAKER_00: The two problems that commonly occur here are problems with the tear film or the shape and thickness of the cornea.
• 1:43
  SPEAKER_00: If the eye dries and the tear film evaporates, the vision fluctuates.
• 1:47
  SPEAKER_00: If the curve is too steep, too flat, or shaped more like a football than a baseball, the images do not land where they should.
• 1:54
  SPEAKER_00: This causes your eyesight to be either nearsighted, far-sighted, or to have astigmatism.
• 1:58
  SPEAKER_00: All of that is a shape problem.
• 2:00
  SPEAKER_00: The third is the lens sitting inside your eye behind the pupil.
• 2:04
  SPEAKER_00: It starts out clear and flexible, and as we age, it stiffens in yellows.
• 2:08
  SPEAKER_00: Yours, mine, and everybody else you know are experiencing this right now.
• 2:12
  SPEAKER_00: Those three are what I fix, and those three are almost certainly what's going on with you.
• 2:16
  SPEAKER_00: Before I get into them, one thing I should mention, and then I'll set it aside.
• 2:20
  SPEAKER_00: There's a fourth part right at the back of the eye, the retina and the optic nerve, that transmits images from the eye to your brain.
• 2:27
  SPEAKER_00: Dabbage back there is different from everything else in this video because it doesn't get corrected with glasses.
• 2:33
  SPEAKER_00: If your vision is going because of a retina or optic nerve issues, those are medical and or surgical issues and are much more complex than what we are talking about here.
• 2:42
  SPEAKER_00: These problems are not common and it tends to be associated with more advanced age.
• 2:46
  SPEAKER_00: It isn't what's happening to most people watching this video.
• 2:49
  SPEAKER_00: The things to look for are straight lines that start looking bent, or a blurry patch near the middle of your vision, or covering one eye by accident and finding out that one side has been doing all the work.
• 2:59
  SPEAKER_00: If this is you, you need to see your eye doctor.
• 3:02
  SPEAKER_00: Everybody else, let's talk about the three things that I can treat and let's figure out which one is yours.
• 3:07
  SPEAKER_00: If your vision blurs and then clears and blinking hard brings it back and it's worse at four in the afternoon than it is at eight in the morning, that's the front of your eye.
• 3:16
  SPEAKER_00: That's the tear film.
• 3:17
  SPEAKER_00: We can treat that with a variety of different drops or minor procedures.
• 3:21
  SPEAKER_00: If your vision has been bad for as long as you can remember and a pair of glasses makes it completely sharp, that's caused by the shape of your cornea and the size of your eye.
• 3:30
  SPEAKER_00: The glasses work because they bend light to land on the retina.
• 3:33
  SPEAKER_00: If your vision was previously good and started to deteriorate in your 40s, 50s, and 60s, that's the lens, an engine issue.
• 3:41
  SPEAKER_00: People might say they need more light to read than they used to.
• 3:44
  SPEAKER_00: They may also say that night driving is harder with those crazy new headlights.
• 3:48
  SPEAKER_00: Their glasses still help, but not as much as they used to.
• 3:51
  SPEAKER_00: Now here's what I'd actually do about each one.
• 3:53
  SPEAKER_00: If it's the tear film, that's one of the most common things that we deal with in ophthalmology.
• 3:58
  SPEAKER_00: Blinking properly, getting the air off your face, treating the eyelid.
• 4:02
  SPEAKER_00: I've got a whole video on it.
• 4:04
  SPEAKER_00: If you are young, like our 30-year-old patient, we can alter the shape of your eye with a laser.
• 4:09
  SPEAKER_00: This is called LASIK or PRK.
• 4:11
  SPEAKER_00: By changing the shape of your cornea, we bend the light, precisely focus on the retina.
• 4:15
  SPEAKER_00: That's what a laser does.
• 4:16
  SPEAKER_00: If somebody's cornea is too thin or too irregular for a laser, I don't reshape it.
• 4:21
  SPEAKER_00: I put a lens inside the eye instead of sitting in front of the natural one and leave the cornea alone.
• 4:26
  SPEAKER_00: Same result, different route.
• 4:28
  SPEAKER_00: That's called the Evo ICL, implantable columnar lens, often called the implantable contact lens.
• 4:34
  SPEAKER_00: Now, if you're a little older and it's the lens inside your eye, I take that lens out and I put in a new one.
• 4:39
  SPEAKER_00: That's a different operation from anything on the cornea, and it's the one that gets called cataract surgery.
• 4:44
  SPEAKER_00: They just want to see without having to wear glasses.
• 4:47
  SPEAKER_00: Which brings me to the thing almost nobody gets told.
• 4:50
  SPEAKER_00: Quick thing.
• 4:50
  SPEAKER_00: If this information is helpful, hit the subscribe button.
• 4:53
  SPEAKER_00: I'm putting one of these out every week.
• 4:55
  SPEAKER_00: Now take those two people I mentioned at the start.
• 4:58
  SPEAKER_00: Same complaint, both of them wear glasses, both of them are sick of it.
• 5:01
  SPEAKER_00: The 30-year-old, I'd reshape the cornea using an eczema laser.
• 5:05
  SPEAKER_00: The younger person's lens inside the eye is still clear and still flexible and still doing its job perfectly well.
• 5:11
  SPEAKER_00: In this case, we reshape the cornea and correct the vision for that patient.
• 5:15
  SPEAKER_00: The 60-year-old, I wouldn't touch the cornea at all.
• 5:18
  SPEAKER_00: And here's why.
• 5:19
  SPEAKER_00: If I laser a 60-year-old's cornea, I've corrected the distance vision without taking into account their developing cataract.
• 5:25
  SPEAKER_00: The lens inside that eye, although age appropriate, is stiffening and already yellowing.
• 5:30
  SPEAKER_00: If someone at age 60 wants to correct their vision, then it makes sense to treat the aging eye and correct vision for distance and reading with one operation.
• 5:39
  SPEAKER_00: For all practical purposes, it's fair to say that I'd replace the lens 99 out of 100 times in that 60-year-old patient.
• 5:47
  SPEAKER_00: Doing refractive cataract surgery allows me to choose the lens that will work best for your eyes to minimize and possibly eliminate the need for glasses, including readers.
• 5:56
  SPEAKER_00: One operation instead of two, and it deals with the thing that is going to change anyway.
• 6:00
  SPEAKER_00: And once it's done, it never has to be done again.
• 6:02
  SPEAKER_00: Essentially, it's one and done.
• 6:04
  SPEAKER_00: Which is why I don't like it when an eye doctor says you're too old for this or you're too young for that.
• 6:09
  SPEAKER_00: Nobody's too old or too young.
• 6:10
  SPEAKER_00: What matters is where your eye is in the process.
• 6:13
  SPEAKER_00: And there's something we can do for almost any eye.
• 6:15
  SPEAKER_00: Which of these is right for a given person is based on the measurement, not off a video or a conversation.
• 6:21
  SPEAKER_00: You've got to get the eye measured.
• 6:22
  SPEAKER_00: We offer free consultations to help you know what options you have.
• 6:26
  SPEAKER_00: So do this.
• 6:27
  SPEAKER_00: Next time you're getting your eyes checked, don't just ask what your prescription is.
• 6:30
  SPEAKER_00: Ask which part of your eye the prescription is correcting, the cornea or the lens.
• 6:35
  SPEAKER_00: Very few people ever ask that, and the answer tells you what your options look like for the next 20 years.
• 6:41
  SPEAKER_00: I never push anyone to have surgery.
• 6:43
  SPEAKER_00: I also never deny anyone the opportunity.
• 6:45
  SPEAKER_00: If you want the mechanical version of what I just talked through, how the cornea and the lens work together to focus, I did a whole video on that.
• 6:52
  SPEAKER_00: It's the one that explains why you ended up in glasses in the first place.
• 6:56
  SPEAKER_00: And it'll make everything here make even more sense.
• 6:59
  SPEAKER_00: So go watch that one if you'd like.
• 7:00
  SPEAKER_00: And hit subscribe.
• 7:01
  SPEAKER_00: Your eyes aren't just getting worse.
• 7:03
  SPEAKER_00: Something specific is happening in a specific place, and for most people, there's an operation that deals with it.
• 7:09
  SPEAKER_00: Go find out which is responsible for your vision problems.
• 7:13
  SPEAKER_00: We can help.