About Proper Eye Care

Video Transcript

"My name's Dr. Alan Watson. I'm an ophthalmologist in St. Joseph, Missouri, and we're here today to talk about eye problems. Well, the thing about eye care is that depends on the patient. Some patients need routine eye examinations, such as a diabetic patient. In diabetics, they are frequently prone to blood vessel disease throughout their body. The human eye is the one area of the human body where you can actually look right down on the blood vessels and inspect them, and see how they're doing. In diabetics, from the blood sugars going up and down it causes damage to the layer of the blood vessel on the inside called the endothelium of the blood vessel and that endothelium starts to leak, and that leakage of fluid accumulates underneath the retina and within the retina and that degrades the image; similarly, like if your pipes in your home had a leak in them and it pumped in a bunch of water into your house, and the water covered the rug of your home, and things don't work as well and it causes damage. And so, you you can get the fluid out of your house by drying the rugs back out, but frequently they're never quite the same. Similarly, you want to prevent the problem in the first place and not just wait to try to clean up the damage later, because they can enjoy much more better vision if the problems are prevented by routine eye care and trying to stay ahead of the problems. This has been Dr. Alan Watson, Ophthalmologist, at St. Joseph, Missouri, discussing different eye problems, and the treatment of different eye problems with you."