State College Eye Care

Flu Season is Upon Us The inevitable flu season. It comes back to get us every year. Luckily, there are many easy ways to help protect yourself this season, and most methods should sound familiar; thorough hand washing, a mix of rest and regular physical activity, and lots of vitamin C are great habits for staying healthy no matter what the season is. Other simple preventative measures include avoiding direct contact with your eyes, nose, and mouth, as well as avoiding close interaction with others who may be sick. And of course, it’s important to get vaccinated to prevent a run in with the flu, but did you know there’s another preventative measure out there? A routine eye exam is one way that flu symptoms may be detected before they become severe. In the early stages of any virus, symptoms may be less detectable, but there a number of subtle signs in the eyes that can be an early indication of a virus like the cold or flu. Doctors can look underneath your eyelids for a papillary

Smoking . . . It’s Damaging Your Eyes Study after study has proven smoking is bad for your health, especially your lungs and heart, but there are some detrimental effects smoking has on your vision, too. Smoking has been linked to two of the leading causes of vision loss, cataracts and macular degeneration, as well as a number of other eye health problems. Cataracts occur when the lens in your eye thickens and becomes less transparent and less flexible. The lens becomes cloudy, causing vision changes including blurring, faded color perception, glare, poor night vision, double vision, and reduced vision. You could compare vision with cataracts to looking through a waterfall. So what’s the link to smoking? The more you smoke, the greater the risk becomes to develop cataracts. Smoking contributes to cataracts by altering the cells of the lens through oxidation. There is also evidence that smoking leads to the accumulation of heavy metals like cadmium in the lens. Macular degenera