Bright Eyes

I became a new patient for a Perrysburg eye doctor this week. Since I don't go home nearly as often as I did during my undergrad years, I finally decided to find an eye doctor up here...

You all have experienced the Glaucoma test before, right? Well the only one that I've ever had was the puff of air test and peripheral vision check..where you put your eyes into a microscope-looking thing and get a puff of air blown at you when you aren't expecting it. The doctor is assessing your eye's pressure with the puff test.

My new eye doctor does it a bit differently; maybe you can relate to this other test. 

First the nurse put a drop of an unnaturally yellow solution, called fluorescein, into each eye, and the purpose of its use is to examine my cornea for scratches or ulcers. 

After the nurse had a look at my eyes, she then put a drop of atropine (or some similar drug) into each eye. Atropine is a really well known drug; you may have heard of it in relation to its somewhat controversial use as an anticholinergic cardio drug. It works by competitively inhibiting the muscarinic acetylcholine receptors which are present in our parasympathetic nervous system. The use of it as an eye drop is to cause pupillary dilation by inhibiting the parasympathetics in the third cranial nerve (the oculomotor nerve). The antimuscarinic drug also blocks the parasympathetic-controlled lens accommodation (which allows us to focus our eyes when reading). By inhibiting the parasympathetic innervation to our eyes, the pupil dilates (because it is under unopposed sympathetic control), and the lens is relaxed. This allows the doctor to examine the retina more precisely, and to be able to be more accurate in deciding that your eyes truly are healthy.

I appreciate that my new doctor wanted to have a good long look at my optic disc and retina, but I was NOT a fan of waiting 4 hours for my lenses to be able to accommodate/my eyes to be able to focus on my studies!...But I guess it was a good excuse to take a night away from the books and spend it with Mike and Marley! :)

"Mydriasis": dilation of the pupil

...I just LOVE medicine; such amazingly fascinating stuff!!! :)