WHITE WITHOUT PRESSURE

This is the photograph of the peripheral retina of a patient with about 10 diopters of near sightedness. The orange area is normal retina. The white area is the "stretched" area that often happens in very near sighted individuals. It is a risk factor for future retinal tears or holes that can lead to retina detachment which can potentially cause total blindness. Patients with a lot of near-sightedness should be dilated on a yearly basis.

VASOCONSTRICTORS CAUSE CHRONIC INFLAMMATION

European Journal of Ophthalmology:

"Chronic abuse of decongestant eyedrops can produce a clinical picture resembling an ocular pemphigoid. Histology suggests that late onset immunoreaction and chronic vasoconstriction cause chronic inflammation and neovascularization, respectively."

CATARACT & PVD

The top photo shows part of a Weiss' Ring that occurs from a posterior vitreous detachment (PVD). The vitreous is like a bag of gel that fills up the eyeball. At some point in most people's lives the bag pulls off the back of the eye, much like wallpaper falling off a wall. The patient can have symptoms of flashes of light and/or floaters. Sometimes it can pull on the retina, causing a tear, which could lead to a retina detachment and subsequent loss of vision. A PVD in and of itself is not dangerous, but the floater could bother a person enough that a retina specialist would have to do surgery to remove it.

The bottom photo is just of a very small amount of clouding of the lens of the eye. When it gets to a point that the patient loses vision, then it is considered a cataract. Of course those are easily fixed with surgery.

TILTED OPTIC NERVES

This optic nerve is tilted. It is of no negative consequence to this patient. It's tilted because instead of entering the eye perpendicular, it enters obliquely. This usually occurs in people that are very near sighted. Their eye is longer and so the optic nerve comes in at a different angle.

PINGUECULA

This is a picture of a pinguecula. It is a bump that can devcelop on the corner of the eye. It is usually from years of exposure to uv light. It can become red and irritated at times. It tends to dry out as well at times. The patient can use artificial tears as much as needed. If that is not good enough, the doctor can prescribe mild anti-inflammatory drops. In severe cases, the pinguecula can grow and can be excised surgically.

MYELINATED NERVE FIBERS

Myelin is the insulation around the nerves in our bodies. This myelin helps the electric signal to travel down the nerve in greater efficiency. As the nerve fibers enter the eye, however, they lose their myelin. Sometimes the myelin continues into the retina as an interesting anomoly. Usually the myelin is near the optic nerve. But in this case, there is myelin around the nerve fibers in the peripheral retina, as you can see in the photo. This myelin has no consequence to this patients vision and there is no danger in this small extent.

MYELINATED NERVE FIBERS

This is the optic nerve of a young man. The optic nerve is normally orangish and round. But you can see there's some white material just below this optic nerve (it's actually above since the image is reversed in the photo). You can see the retina blood vessels overlying the white material. This material is "myelination". Myelin is the insulation of the nerves in our bodies. When the optic nerve enters the eye, the nerve fibers lose their insulation. But in this case you see a little of the myelin coming into the retina a little. This does not cause any harm at all in thsi small extent.