Vision and Eye Care Blog

Focused Eye Care, an optometry office focused on serving the needs and treatment of patients living in the Southern New Hampshire and Northern Massachusetts areas, has recently welcomed Dr. Lyudmila Sutherland to its ever-growing team.

Focused Eye Care, a well-established southern New Hampshire practice providing comprehensive eye health and optometry services, has announced that optometrist Ronald Coutu has joined its growing team. Dr. Coutu brings more than 30 years of practice experience to Focused Eye Care and has served for more than 14 years on the board of directors for the New Hampshire Optometric Association (NHOA).

The upcoming solar eclipse on April 8th is an exciting astronomical event, but it's crucial to remember that looking directly at the sun, even during an eclipse, is never safe.

Focused Eye Care, a practice dedicated to providing comprehensive eye health and vision care services to southern New Hampshire and northern Massachusetts, recently welcomed Catherine Johnson, Doctor of Optometry (O.D.) and Fellow of the American Academy of Optometry (F.A.A.O.), to its growing team in a newly created pediatric role.

We typically think of lung cancer as the main health risk associated with smoking, and then maybe oral health problems next, but the parts of the body that have direct contact with the smoke aren’t the only ones hurt by it. As eye health professionals, we want to focus on what smoking does to our eyes and vision.

The main health risk that tends to come to mind with a smoking habit is lung cancer, perhaps followed by oral health problems, but it doesn’t merely harm the parts of the body that come into direct contact with the smoke. Studies show that there is a significant increase in the risk of eye diseases from cataracts to diabetic retinopathy to glaucoma to age-related macular degeneration (AMD).

Melanin, the same compound that determines skin and hair color, is also responsible for different eye colors. Melanin helps to protect the eye by absorbing light (including some UV light) that hits the iris, which is the part of the eye that controls the amount of light that reaches the retina.

Roman philosopher Seneca is recorded to have used a glass globe of water to magnify text, while Emperor Nero would use a magnifying emerald to see gladiator fights better. We no longer need to resort to using water bowls or gemstones, and it’s pretty cool to see how far we’ve come in vision correction since then.

Getting enough sleep is great for our overall health and our eye health alike. At the other end of things, we can improve the quality of our sleep if we are more careful about what we put in front of our eyes before we go to bed.