We spoke with Dr. Blaine Cribbs, an ophthalmologist and retina specialist with Emory Eye Center, and optometrist Dr. Tom Spetalnick, clinical director of the Woolfson Eye Institute in Atlanta, about the condition and what it means for eye health.
What is macular dystrophy?
Dr. Spetalnick: Macular dystrophy is a general term that includes a lot of different conditions that have different levels of aggressiveness. Essentially the short answer is it's any of a group of disorders that are inherited and progressive.
Dr. Cribbs: Without knowing exactly what his diagnosis is, it is impossible to guess what is going on with Mr. Beck, but the most common form of macular dystrophy is vitelliform, which can present early onset in children or as adults.
How does it differ from macular degeneration?
TS: Macular degeneration is something not necessarily inherited. Macular dystrophy is more likely to be traceable to a gene or an inherited pattern. When young patients [have] macular problems, it’s more likely to be a dystrophy, as opposed to macular degeneration, which is an age–related loss of function and change of anatomy.
How does macular dystrophy affect one’s vision?
TS: It can vary. Some people will have minor loss of vision that is minimally progressive and others will have complete loss of the central vision. The retina is the seeing part of the eye and the macula is the central part of that, which is responsible for the greatest detail vision. When you need to see detail, you point your macula at that, so people with a type of dystrophy will have some loss of whatever they are looking at directly. Macular dystrophy could certainly cause legal blindness, which means you can’t see any better than 20/200 out of both eyes.
BC: Macular dystrophy won't take away night vision or peripheral vision, but it can cause severe impairment or blind spots.
What are early warning signs?
BC: The first things people notice are small blind spots or maybe a distortion of the vision when they are trying to read; the lines or letters would be crooked or missing.
TS: It could present harmlessly with a routine eye examination. [Or] symptoms would most likely be their vision would be blurred and they would think they need new glasses, but then you discover [more] vision loss.
Do you see this problem often?
TS: Macular dystrophies are not very common. We see a lot of macular degeneration and age-related changes in the macula.
So we don't know exactly what Glenn Beck might have?
TS: No. He might also have macular corneal dystrophy, which is treatable. Assuming he has macular corneal dystrophy, that is a clouding of the cornea that can be treated and the most extreme treatment would be a corneal transplant.
I'm not a prophet or a stone aged man, just a mortal with potential of a superman. I'm living on.~David Bowie
12 Little Instant Health Boosts
In psychologist Daniel Goleman's 2004 book Destructive Emotions, the writer asks the Dalai Lama whether he thinks that the Buddha's brain was organically different from that of a normal person. In a question that might well have been asked of any spiritual master from Jesus to Mohammed..., the writer is seeking to know whether The Enlightened One was made of such different stuff that he never experienced negative thoughts such as jealousy, frustration, hatred or sadness. The Lama answers, somewhat unexpectedly, (I paraphrase) that whether the Buddha's brain was the kind of saucepan that never formed a negative bubble, or whether he was able to dissolve the rising bubble of destructive thought before it reached the surface, the effect is the same.
Simply put, this means that enlightened masters are qualitatively just like the rest of us; the difference is one of quantity. Unlike those of us just struggling to get through our day … enlightened folks nip negative emotions in the bud and take life's challenges in stride. …
It's a simple takeaway, really. Honor the feelings -- just don't become a slave to them. Listen to the inner voice of calm and reason and regain control of the way we feel in the shortest possible time. Strive not to say or do anything until we're calm again. See enlightenment as a process, not some lofty, unobtainable goal.
Instead of trying to change who or what we are, let's work to liberate ourselves from the bondage unfettered, destructive emotions bring us. We want to be free, don't we? Isn't freedom the greatest promise that any self-help class, book, podcast, lecture,
Make it a game to notice your own dance with emotion. If you do, you will have taken the first draught of the antidote to the venom destructive emotions deliver. Pay attention to how long your anger burns. Recognize for how many days your resentment smolders, your jealousy lingers, your indignation persists. Breathe. Concentrate on letting go. Tell yourself you want to be free and happy again. It's a skill, see? All it takes is practice.
“Art is a tool of empowerment and social change, and I consider myself blessed to be able to create and use my work to promote health reform, bring awareness about ALS and help others.” ~Tony Quan, aka Tempt One
A
'Hackers and artists' join forces
Quan learned he had
Quan’s disease progressed rapidly, until all he could move were his eyes. His career came to an abrupt stop and would have stayed stopped had his case not come to the attention of several people from across the country, loosely described as “a bunch of hackers and artists.”
Plans and software are free
The device consists of cheap eyeglass frames, some wire ties and copper wire, several LEDs (light-emitting diodes) and a micro video camera. Free, do-it-yourself instructions for building one can be found on the Eyewriter Web site. The hardware is used in conjunction with original computer software, also written by the Eyewriter team. The software is open source (free), too.
The Eyewriter tracks Quan’s eye movements and permits him to plot points on a computer monitor. From the points he can create letters and words that he can fill in with colors, render in 3-D if he wants, and add other features.
Like air for a drowning man
The tech team built the Eyewriter at no cost to Quan. When they first fitted it on him, in the hospital bed where he spends all of his time, he was overwhelmed. After tentatively trying the equipment out, spelling his father’s name, Ron, and seeing it projected on the wall of his room, he’s quoted as saying (by communicating slowly through an eye gaze alphabet selection device) that he felt like a person who has been held underwater for 5 minutes, then mercifully brought up to breathe.
“I can’t even begin to describe how good it feels to be able to rock styles again,” Quan told a friend. Since putting the Eyewriter to work, he has participated in art shows in venues as diverse as
As those of you following my blog know, I've been challenged with debilitating headaches after having eye-surgery to repair damage caused by a faulty champagne-cork accident.
BBC News: 'Hot' substance in chilli peppers key to killing painA team at the University of Texas says a substance similar to capsaicin, which makes chilli peppers hot, is found in the human body at sites of pain.
And blocking the production of this substance can stop chronic pain, the team found.
They report their findings in the Journal of Clinical Investigation.
Capsaicin is the primary ingredient in hot chilli peppers which causes a burning sensation.
It does this by binding to receptors present on the cells inside the body.
Similarly, when the body is injured, it releases capsaicin-like substances - fatty acids called oxidized linoleic acid metabolites or OLAMs - and these, via receptors, cause pain, the researchers have found.
...
"One in four Americans - 75 million people - live in chronic, debilitating pain. In fact, pain affects more Americans than diabetes, heart disease and cancer combined. Here are some steps you can take to get relief.
What is pain?
The early Greeks and Romans advanced the idea that the brain played a role in producing the perception of pain. In the 19th century, physician-scientists discovered that opiates such as morphine could relieve pain and chemist Felix Hoffmann developed aspirin from a substance in willow bark. Aspirin remains the most commonly used pain reliever today.
In 1994, the International Association for the Study of Pain (IASP) defined pain as an "unpleasant sensory and emotional experience associated with actual or potential tissue damage."
According to a survey by the National Center for Health Statistics (2006), 26% of adults experienced pain lasting more than 24 hours in the month prior, and 10% experienced the same pain for a year or more. Pain requires particular attention in infants and children since they are not always able to describe the type, degree, or location of pain they are experiencing.
The truth about women and pain
Pain is a regular, if unwelcome, reality for many women, perhaps even more than it is for men, and yet, according to the American Pain Foundation, they are often undertreated. Most women have pain with menstruation at some point in their lives, and childbirth can be painful. Some common disorders of the female reproductive tract are painful. Also, painful autoimmune diseases are much more common in women. To cope with their pain, women tend to use more approaches than men, such as learning about their condition, turning to others for support, and finding ways to relax more and manage stress.
Still, it can be hard for a woman to get help for her pain. Some doctors are less likely to give women painkillers because they think that women overstate the amount of pain they feel. Studies have shown that given the same amount of pain, men are less likely to report it than women. Men might feel they need to "tough it out." But this doesn't mean that the pain women are reporting isn't real. ..."
READ MORE: http://tinyurl.com/y2sc3ju
