In 1994, 21-year-old Gula Namiq Hassan was living in a Sulaymaniyah, north of Bagdad and in the wrong place at the wrong time when shrapnel from a nearby car bomb blast pierced her eyes, blinding her, presumably thought at the time, forever. Her right eye had to be removed, and her left eye was damaged from the cornea to the retina.Skip forward to 2011, and an Iraqi ophthalmologist told Gula and her family that the pioneering eye surgeon Dr. Amar Agarwal, father of the glued intraocular lens (IO… Continue reading →

Many of us dream of going into space when we are young, before reaching adulthood when the dawning realisation sets in that space travel is a once in a lifetime opportunity assigned only to the lucky few astronauts, at least until space travel becomes commercially viable.It may be interesting to learn though, that those who’ve taken part in the moon landings as far back as Buzz Aldrin’s first steps on the cratered surface during the first manned lunar landing on July 20, 1969, may have exper… Continue reading →

The fact that you can buy eye drops from a chemist without the requirement for prescription can lead to much confusion and misuse of eye drops, with increased importance placed on how, when and why they should be used.When Would You Need Eye Drops?Eye drops in all forms can help alleviate symptoms of a variety of eye complaints including dryness, redness and certain allergies relating to certain pets or dust for example. It is important to decipher exactly which types of drops are required for a… Continue reading →

In the warm summer months, most people remember to protect their skin from ultraviolet (UV) rays and sun burn with sunscreen, but does everyone know that UV radiation is just as harmful to your eyes as your skin?All opticians know the dangers of UV radiation and can advise their customers on the best ways to protect their eyes, usually with UV protective prescription glasses or sunglasses.Do you know where your sunglasses are?Lots of people own sunglasses and treat them as a fashion accessory, n… Continue reading →

Whilst perfect vision isn’t a requirement for the majority of jobs, it is for certain professions and having corrective glasses or even surgery isn’t an option.

So what are these jobs and what are the requirements?

•    Airline Pilot. If you want to be a pilot, you will generally be required to have absolutely perfect vision. This is because other people are putting your life in their hands. Wearing glasses isn’t an option because they might break, become lost. Y… Continue reading →

Researchers at Californian VisionCare Ophthalmic Technologies produce a telescope implant capable of combating Age-related macular degeneration
As the second biggest cause of blindness worldwide, age-related macular degeneration (AMD) presents a serious challenge to health care today. The condition, which damages the part of our retina responsible for seeing and transmitting fine detail to the brain, is a huge focus for ophthalmic technology researches around the world, and recently a new s… Continue reading →

Today, if we start finding that our vision is impaired – if we have difficulty focussing on objects far away, or squint in an attempt to read a book – we book an appointment with an optician to get a diagnosis of our eyesight and expect to have it corrected with glasses. We take it for granted that the medical knowledge is there.

When Were Corrective Glasses First Developed?

Initially people used a form of magnifying glass to allow them to focus on objects. Because the… Continue reading →

Age related macular degeneration (AMD) is one of the most common medical eye conditions, with around one in 50 people affected in the Western world. The condition is most prevalent in those over 50 years of age, but are there any precautions we can take, or is this just one of many inevitable signs of aging which we must just learn to accept?What is AMD?A medical condition which doesn’t cause total blindness, but results in a worryingly increased loss of central vision rather than peripheral, … Continue reading →

Often people talk of treacherous driving conditions in terms of driving rain, heavy snow or mist and fog which obscure visibility of vehicles around you, but strong sunshine is understated as a potentially dangerous form of weather, where wearing the right sunglasses can be the difference of keeping your eyes on the road for those valuable few seconds where you would otherwise be momentarily blinded.Blinding SunAlthough extensive sunlight on your car windscreen is most likely during the coming s… Continue reading →

Few of us will have managed to escape without hearing someone termed ‘blind as a bat’ at some point in our lives, and with the frequency of the phrase we’d be forgiven for making the natural assumption that these creatures are somewhat optically challenged. In fact, many of us probably wouldn’t turn our heads if told that bats had no eyes at all, but the facts really are much different.

Fact or myth?

There are an estimated 1,100 species of bat currently flap… Continue reading →