Treatment of Eye Disease

Dr. Annis is specially trained and licensed to provide the kinds of eyecare and eye treatment most of the population needs most of the time. This represents about 95% of the kinds of things you might need. Of course this includes those things which are acute and take you completely by surprise as well as most of those things which are chronic in nature, the things that tend to smolder along, leaving your eyes or vision less than enjoyable.

While not strictly limited to the list below, Dr. Annis is equipped to take care of any of these. We’ll arrange them in the following order to help you better find what you’re looking for:

• Foreign bodies
• Eye infections
• Dry Eye
• Diabetic eye disease
• Glaucoma
• Cataracts

In addition, if you’d like more information on any of these topics or others, be sure to visit our Vision Library, located on the bottom of the page.

Foreign bodies
Those things which lodge mercilessly in the eye and won’t come out, whether propelled there under great velocity or not. If you have one, you’ll know it by the extreme pain, redness and tearing it will produce. Owing partly to manufacturing businesses nearby, to hard-working people adept at self-destruction and to good old lakeshore breezes, we deal with foreign bodies routinely.

Eye infections
Often referred to as “pink-eye,” these contagious diseases can be caused by either bacteria or viruses. Some kinds of pink-eye can be quickly erased via antibiotics; others can’t. We’ll need to see you to determine which kind you have. The good news is that almost all eye infections will limit themselves, that is, they’ll go away on their own if given enough time. We, however, want to do all that can be done to minimize their impact. You shouldn’t have to wear sunglasses to keep the paparozzi from photographing all the red!

Dry Eye
“Dry Eye” is an extremely common problem affecting all ages. If you have it, you might be surprised to know that one of the most common symptoms of Dry Eye is excess tearing! The mild (or severe) burning, stinging or sandy feeling will often cause enough irritation to signal your eyes to flush themselves, producing the puddling of tears. In other cases, you just find yourself blinking like crazy and never really feeling comfortable. You’ll be glad to know that highly effective treatments are now available for Dry Eye sufferers that can really make life more enjoyable. Be sure to mention any symptoms you might have when you come for your visit!

Diabetic eye disease
Unfortunately, diabetic eye disease remains the leading cause of blindness in the United States for adults between the ages of 20 and 74 years. If you know you have diabetes, you are most fortunate to know it. As many as 50% of actual diabetics are still undiagnosed! We recommend annual dilated eye exams (using special drops and instruments) for anyone with diabetes. We conduct these routinely in our office. Here’s why, and these reasons apply to those with either insulin-dependent or non-insulin-dependent diabetes…

• Sight-threatening eye disease (called retinopathy) is a common complication of diabetes and is often without symptoms until the late stages of the disease process.
• Early detection of sight-threatening disease with timely and appropriate management significantly reduces the risk of visual loss.
• The duration of your diabetes, poor control of it, pregnancy, protein in the urine, high blood pressure, eye surgery, ethnic influences, cholesterol and triglycerides, lack of exercise, and smoking are all risk factors that increase the chances of eye disease beginning or progressing.

We want to help you make as certain as possible that any retinopathy is caught as early as possible. And if a threat does materialize, we will give you a prompt referral to a retinopathy specialist who will treat it, if deemed necessary. The last thing we want is to see you robbed of something as precious as your eyesight.

Glaucoma
While the exact cause of this disease is unknown, we do know that, for some reason, the passages that normally allow fluid within your eye to drain out become clogged or blocked. This results in fluid pressure building up within your eye. The delicate nerves inside the eyes can be easily damaged by the pressure. All the time the eyes are sustaining damage, there is typically no sensation whatsoever. In fact, if we could “feel” our own eye pressure or feel the damage it was causing, we might never have a problem because we would know exactly when it got too high. The very best plan is to let us check it. We detect and treat this silent disease at our office.

Cataracts
Your eyes each contain a natural lens, much like the lens in a pair of glasses, only miniaturized. When these normally clear lenses begin to develop a cloudiness, these are cataracts. Eventually, a mild cloudiness gives way to a denser opaqueness and vision is noticeably reduced. Until then, you might simply wonder why you don’t seem to see as crisply as you once did. Or maybe feel like you must need a change in your spectacle lenses. We’ll help you know whether a cataract is the problem and, maybe more importantly, help you determine the appropriate time to consider having it removed.