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How do you know when something is not right with your body? You feel pain. Pain is usually an indicator that something is amiss. It’s easier to detect which part of your body needs attention and easier still to diagnose and treat. But with your organ of sight, your eyes, pain is not felt as easily as a tooth ache. What then should you look out for to tell that your eyes are not up to standard?

Your eyes function as a whole complex system that receives light, relays it and converts it into nerve impulses to be perceived as images by the brain. Your visual acuity is dependent on how well these parts work and any change or difference in its workings will be sure to affect your vision. These eye symptoms are the things that you need to be aware of because any threat to the eyes’ parts is a threat to your vision.
Eye symptoms may be classified as change in vision, change in the eye’s appearance or any abnormal feeling in the eye. Generally, eye symptoms indicate a problem in the eye but there may be times when a change in your vision is indicative of a problem in the brain or part of a disease that affects other organs or systems in the body. Eye symptoms may also start slow and gradual, building up to a full-blown problem. They may also be sudden and instantaneous, like in the case of accidents. Most common eye symptoms include - red eyes, blurry or loss of vision, double vision, eye inflammation, pain in the eye, itching and dryness, just to name a few.

The important thing to remember is that whether it’s a slight difference or a major injury to the eye, it is essential to seek medical advice and to consult the proper eye doctor. Some eye diseases don’t show any symptoms at their early stages so it’s necessary to maintain regular comprehensive eye check-ups just to be on the safe side.

The secret to good eyesight and healthy vision is the maintenance of healthy eyes. If you were to dedicate the same amount of time and effort in keeping your body slim and perfect with the way you would to taking care of your eyes, you probably won’t be beset with as much eye problems as most people. Keeping your eyes healthy is also important as a lot of your activities are also dependent on having clear and unmarred vision. If you don’t take care of your eyes now, it may be too late to correct any problems that may arise in the future.

What can you do to keep your eyes healthy?

The first step is getting a good eye doctor and meticulously following his instructions. It would be prudent to visit the doctor once you feel that your vision is not up to par or if you’ve been having trouble with seeing clearly. A comprehensive eye exam will determine what the best solution is for your eye condition. You may just have some refraction problems like myopia, hyperopia or astigmatism which can easily be corrected with eyeglasses, contact lenses or surgery. Or the doctor may find some early symptoms of eye diseases in which case it’s better to have early detection and early treatment. Maintain regular visits to the eye doctor too especially if you’ve been diagnosed with eye conditions to enable the doctor to monitor your eyes’ health. Also, since some eye conditions are often hereditary, if you have a susceptibility to a certain disease and even if you aren’t experiencing any symptoms, it’s still best to keep a regular appointment with your doctor.

Another thing that you can do to maintain healthy eyes is to practice good posture. It may seem like they’re not connected but when you think about it, when your eyes are not on level, with say the computer, you’re putting a strain on them too. So, if you slouch, you not only strain your eyes, but also your back and your neck and even your fingers. All these stretched muscles will ultimately spread pain all over your body draining it of its energy.

Setting up a workstation with a good lighting environment is important. Too much glare from too much lighting will make your eyes hurt. Too little lighting also stresses your eyes and forces them to focus. Too much strain leads to dry eyes and eye irritation. Have a good source of lighting when working or reading, especially when your work involves small details or when you have to look at the computer the whole day. Look away every once in a while to relax the eyes. Keep blinking as it helps to moisturize the eyes too.
Best of all, live healthy. What nutrition you put in your body also gets to the eyes. Keep your eyes protected from UV light when going out by wearing sunglasses or head protection for the glare. Try some eye exercises too.

Vision or the ability to detect light and interpret it as sight rests on the eyes and its complex system. The function of the eyeball and all its components allows us to use our sense of sight in everyday activities which makes it a vital organ in the human body. But did you ever wonder how the eye works? The simplest way to explain how the intricate functions of each part work is to compare the human eyeball with a camera, as they both capture images and relay them in some form for people to interpret.

Light from the outside first hits the “cornea”, a clear dome-shaped surface that covers the front of the eyes. The cornea is built in such a way that it is able to refract (bend) light that passes through it. Once the light has been bent, it goes straight to the “iris” (that part of the eye that gives it its color) where the pupil is located and it is through this hole in the iris that light passes. The iris muscles enlarge and shrink the pupil much like the shutter of the camera depending on how much light needs to pass through. From the iris, light travels and strikes the “crystalline lens” which is responsible for focusing the light rays properly. Once through the lens, the light rays pass through the vitreous humor (a gel-like substance that holds the spherical shape of the eye) on its way to its goal, the retina.

The retina serves as the “film” of the eye if you continue with the camera analogy. It is responsible for catching and capturing the light rays, processes them and turns them into nerve impulses which then get carried out and sent through the optic nerve. The optic nerve is thus connected to the brain which interprets all these signals as images.

The set up looks extremely complex when you think about all the stops that the light has to go through to be converted as vision. It certainly makes you think how incredibly sophisticated the optic system is and hopefully makes you appreciate your eyes more.

It’s common knowledge that the eyes give us our sense of sight. But what you didn’t know is that it’s made up of a number of different parts that together form a complex system of light and electrical impulses that enable us to see. The cornea is just the first step in interpreting light as images.

The cornea is the transparent, dome-shaped window covering the front of the eye. To see the cornea, all you need to do is to look at your eye in the mirror. Looking at it closely, you’ll detect a clear thin surface covering the iris and the pupil, that’s the cornea. What does it do? What function does it serve? Together with the sclera or the white of the eye, it functions as a protective guard, a barrier against dirt, germs, and other particles that can do damage to the eye’s other delicate components. It is also responsible for 2/3 of the eyes’ focusing power. It is able to bend or refract incoming light and the curvature of the cornea will decide how well you are able to focus and how clear your vision will be. Most eye conditions like myopia (near-sightedness), hyperopia (far-sightedness) and astigmatism are caused by irregularities in the curvature of the cornea. Toric contact lenses help to correct cornea irregularities.

There are three main layers of the cornea – the epithelium, stroma and the endothelium. The epithelium is the outermost covering of the cornea. It serves to block any foreign matter from entering and damaging the cornea. In cases when the cornea sustains minor damage, it automatically regenerates the cells to repair it. It also absorbs oxygen and other nutrients from tears. This layer is extremely sensitive to pain when rubbed or scratched because of its many nerve endings. The stroma is the largest layer of the cornea, filled with 78% of water and layered protein fibers that give the cornea its elastic and solid form. Lastly, the endothelium is the single layer of cells located between the stroma and the aquaeous humor. Its primary responsibility is to remove excess water from the stroma.

It is important to care for your cornea as it can easily be damaged. Blurry vision is usually the first symptom when something is amiss with your eye. Many corneal diseases arise from infection and degeneration and a trip to the doctor is advisable as early as the first onset of symptoms.

Was there ever an occasion that you thought you were adopted because your eye color is not the same as your parents? In earlier times, it was believed that parents with brown eyes can never have children with blue eyes. This is based on the two-gene theory, that the dominant gene determines the color of your eyes. The color brown is considered the dominant gene and blue is considered the recessive gene. Based on this theory, parents with brown eyes may have children with blue eyes only under the condition that somewhere in their genetic line, there is an ancestor that carries the blue recessive gene.

More research into this interesting field has resulted in additional theories. One such theory is that the color of the eyes comes from the amount and type of melanin pigment on the iris fibers. If the eyes have a large concentration of melanin within the iris stroma, the resulting eye color is brown. Blue eyes come from a lesser volume of melanin and can even be affected by the size and spacing of the fibers and stromal cells. People may also experience a slight change in eye color depending on their exposure to the sun which is why brown eyes are more common in tropical countries and blue eyes are more common for Caucasians.

Other scientists postulate that eyes get their color from a combination of brown, blue and yellow pigments in the eyes resulting in additional eye colors like amber, green and hazel. For instance, green eye color comes from a combination of the blue and yellow pigments. Amber results from both brown and yellow. Hazel is considered the midway color between the lightest shade of blue and the darkest shade of brown and is often characterized by subtle changes in lighting.

Another interesting tidbit is that most infants are born with blue eyes until they later change into their natural color. Even the color of your dress may affect the color of your eyes based on how the light reflects such color. So, give your eyes the importance and care that they deserve. Your eye color can be considered a miracle in itself.