Dear Valued Patients,

Welcome to the first installment of our new newsletter:

Our goal is to provide interesting and valuable insight into vision care and good health to support your active lifestyles.   We will strive to continue to be the premiere eye care facility in southeast Michigan by providing comprehensive vision care to our patients and our community.

We applaud those of you in your commitments to live an active lifestyle and challenge others to embrace healthy living. Based on what we have heard from you, we will support your goals and follow your examples of living a healthy lifestyle - rich in nutrition and exercise, family and friends, and maintaining a healthy balance between work and play.

We want our efforts to reflect what we value most in our office - to be your eye care advocate and to assist you in living healthy throughout all the stages of your life. We will share information with you about good, healthy and proactive choices, which promote healthy vision for you, your children, your parents, and your friends.

In the spirit of continuous improvement, we welcome feedback. Please share with us what you enjoy and what we can improve at [email protected].

Contact Lens Evolve - Live an Active Lifestyle

Corrective Therapy - While You Sleep

Corneal Refractive Therapy has been expanded to treat nearsighted patients with higher amounts of astigmatism. Over the last decade, we have offered an alternative to Lasik for adults and a prevention for younger myopic patients (nearsighted patients).  These patients wear their lenses overnight and remove them during the day. This lens wearing therapy eliminates the need for eyeglasses and daytime contact lenses!  Besides the convenience, the typical nearsighted creep is halted.

Colored Contacts

Tinted Contact Lenses Equal Fun! A resurgence in the use of tinted colored lenses has been prompted by the best entry into this realm of lenses in decades. Alcon has introduced a colored lens design that brings comfort and cosmetique together.  In the past, inevitably, our patients who desired the appeal of these lenses had to sacrifice the ultimate comfort found in other contacts.  But now, this iris-enhancing technology is sandwiched between the two surfaces of each lens. The result has been complete comfort with wonderful color enhancement and color transformation.  Many of our staff and patients, both dark and light eyed, have embraced the results. "Sometimes I go with my natural brown color and other times I'm blue or green eyed. I receive so many compliments on my vivid eye colors! Very fun!" said a recent patient.

Dr. Jacobi, the Clinical Director of Low Vision of Michigan at Suburban Eye Care, is now pairing a new type of training for partially sighted patients to achieve the lifestyle that many think is unattainable. For years SEC has made available to patients eyeglasses with mounted telescopes and microscopes so that patients with sight deficiencies might be able to watch TV, read, pursue hobbies and even drive. These "hands free" devices make vision more accessible and practical. Dr. Jacobi and his colleagues have come together to tame the complexity of this technology

The process that produces the most successful outcomes for patients lies in plotting out the usable areas of vision for each patient. That is, because the center of vision is missing, the patient must be guided to learn to use the functioning portions of the retina. This is facilitated by instructing the patient to exercise the proper positions of gauge.  Therefore, the intact retinal areas are mapped out for the patient and through a series of activities, the patient is ready to more efficiently explore the remaining sighted retinal regions.

In the end, through this training protocol, the patient learns to more easily work with magnification and even navigate the world better even when not using specialized devices.  Patients can enjoy the finer detailed aspects of life, such as reading and arts and crafts, greater independence and a safer lifestyle.

Back to School = Visual Demands

School is ramping up along with the visual demands and stresses not typically experienced with the lazy days of summer. And classrooms make terrific staging grounds for visual disorders ranging from sight to headaches and dyslexia. Untreated visual deficiencies can hamper overall development.

Listen to your child if he or she is complaining of issues that may be vision related. Parents can become frustrated when their children start to vocalize visual complaints even after their pediatrician's vision screening.  In reality, screenings are intended to identify large deficits in vision, but do not account for vision testing of eye coordination or near vision. An in depth evaluation of the entire visual processing system is always needed annually for students.

From the Desk of Dr. Jacobi

Nearsightedness Research for Myopic Patients

Many parents of nearsighted children ask if they genetically predestined their child's vision.  And though genetics do come into play with myopia, behavior has, quite possibly, more to say.  We successfully slow and even halt myopic progression on a regular basis using a range of treatment options.  In addition, many studies are offering other considerations of myopic control that I'd like to share with you.

One study found that increased blood serum levels of Vitamin D was associated with decreased prevalence of myopia.  And if the levels are quite high, the risk of becoming nearsighted lessens greatly. The study spanned twenty years and also sited other contributory factors such as Asian descent, higher education, family history, and lack of outdoor play.

Yet another study looked quite specifically at the time a child spends outdoors and its link to the incidence of myopia. They concluded that the more time a child spent outdoors and the less time he spent on near activities, the less likely he would either become nearsighted or the decreased likelihood he would progress into deeper myopia. Near activities included computer use along with reading and writing.

This study looked directly at outdoor and near activities and their relationship to eyeball length. Increasing eye ball length is the number one change that leads to myopia. They noted that less than an hour a day of outdoor play lead to an on average eye length of 34%.

An additional study spells out the further dangers of allowing nearsightedness to progress. It states that one of the best predictors for visual impairment is the amount of prescription needed for nearsighted correction. That is, those with higher nearsightedness tend to suffer eye disease with subsequent impairment. There are multiple tools to thwart the onset and progression of myopia. As a community, we all need to take advantage of these sight saving technologies. 

Patients in Our Community Overcome Visual Challenges         

Currently, The Vision Therapy Center (VTC) at Suburban Eye Care is working with a variety of patients who have persevered through frustration, pain and low self-esteem. Read their stories to learn about their resolve.

Case One: One of our adult patients had suffered an auto accident that left her with a retinal detachment and double vision.  Her binocular system was never robust before the accident.  But now her repaired retina left her with enough visual distress that her neurological system (her brain) no longer had the energy to pair both her left and right eye. It simply wanted no longer to support that binocular effort.

Our patient felt helpless and frustrated and suffered from headaches caused by the vision trauma. So, we increased the prism in her glasses which seemed to help. However, she was still intermittently experiencing double vision. We have seen this outcome many times before. In fact, many doctors refer these cases to us because they become frustrated when prisms alone do not cure the patient.  Some patients need additional treatment to achieve the best outcome: Vision Therapy.  She is now nearing the end of her therapeutic program with single, clear vision and without headaches. She has done much hard work and continues to persevere.

Case Two: One of our young patients, diagnosed with dyslexia, moved beautifully through the series of therapeutic activities that we had given him each week. His double vision with near work had disappeared, his eye movement proficiency when tracking print and in sports had escalated, and his visual memory for spelling had become sound.  But, he was still reading remedial books. Why? Visualization was vivid, which lead to a rich mental conjuring ability. So, mechanics were good and visual perception was enhanced. So, what was impeding his reading progress?

He needed the permission to challenge himself. I had to say to him, "You know, it's ok for you to read harder books now. There is nothing blocking you from reading chapter books." He is now not only reading chapter books, but is attempting true novels. It has only been six months since his vision therapy had begun and already his confidence and reading ability had increased.

5 Things Your Kids Need YOU to Know About Their Eyes

• A vision screening does not take the place of a comprehensive eye exam.
• The most common vision related learning diagnosis - Convergence Insufficiency - is undetectable to the naked eye.
• Eating a healthy diet rich in greens will help sustain the visual system throughout a lifetime - kale, spinach & turnip
• 20/20/20 Rule: Every 20 minutes, look up at 20 feet for at least 20 seconds. Practice this rule of thumb to prevent myopia!
• Children should have their first eye exam when they begin doing near work, like coloring and tracing

Attention Creative Kids: We need your help!

Please find or create your own eye related riddle. We will pick two to feature in our next newsletter! Here's one to get you started:

32415 Five Mile Road