Mai Eyes Optometry

09/08/2021

Stay safe when visiting your eye care professional. Mask up when recommended by your physician's office and feel free to ask your doctor questions if you're concerned about the vaccine you've taken or would like to know more as you are considering getting vaccinated.

In the fight against the delta variant, here is how the Pfizer-BioNTech, Moderna, and Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 vaccines measure up when it comes to protection. A new study found the Moderna vaccine was 76% effective against the Delta variant, while the Pfizer vaccine was only 42% effective against...

08/18/2021

When should I take my child in for an eye exam? Answers may vary depending on who you ask, however the American Optometric Association recommends our first eye exam at between 6 and 12 months old to make sure visual development and health is on track and generally every 1-2 years after! Is your child on track?

Eye exams with an eye care professional can help detect a number of conditions, some of which your pediatrician may not be aware of or have the ability to evaluate during a pediatric annual wellness visit. These conditions may include: eye turns (strabismus), high refractive error (glasses prescription), amblyopia and occasionally pathologies such as congenital cataracts and even cancers within the eye (retinoblastoma).

Unsure of where to take your infant for their first eye exam? A good place to start is to check out: https://infantsee.org/

This website can help you find a participating InfantSee provider who has volunteered to provide one time free comprehensive eye exams for infants between 6 months and 12 months old.

InfantSEE®, a public health program, managed by Optometry Cares® -The AOA Foundation, is designed to ensure that eye and vision care becomes an essential part of infant wellness care to improve a child's quality of life.

07/28/2021

Due to the high spread of the Delta COVID-19 variant, the CDC has updated its guidelines and are recommending "in areas of substantial and high transmission," masking indoors and in public settings should be resumed by fully vaccinated individuals. This includes our current place of practice, the state of Florida.

With approximately 46% of US counties currently having high transmission and 17% having substantial transmission, predominantly the US's southeast and other counties with low vaccination rates, precautions are being reinitiated and several hospitals have resumed code red status.

"When the CDC previously revised its guidance on May 13 for vaccinated people to unmask, Delta only represented 1% of reported infections. Now, according to the CDC, it represents at least 83% of cases."

Due to the low rate of vaccination status and our current lack of understanding of how likely a vaccinated person is to transmit the Delta variant to others, in order to protect those yet unvaccinated, we are urging all people to resume masking and to encourage those currently unvaccinated to get the vaccine. The goal is to reach levels of vaccine status that will allow our country to resume life as it was before the pandemic.

To prevent further spread of the Delta variant, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention updated its mask guidance on Tuesday to recommend that fully vaccinated people wear masks indoors when in areas with "substantial" and "high" transmission of Covid-19, which includes nearly two-thirds o...

07/22/2021

Dry eyes interfering with your daily life? Friends asking why you are "crying" all the time? Work misinterpreting your constantly red eyes? Maybe it's time to see your eye care specialist for a dry eye specific examination.

Targeted dry eye testing and treatment for your dry eye disease is often necessary to fully address this issue. Not every office is equipped to handle dry eye disease. Ask your doctor what tests and treatment options they can offer you.

For more info, see this article:

Got chronic dry eyes? Don't lose hope - many different treatments are available now. Learn more...

05/27/2021

Some research is beginning to back the idea that the COVID-19 vaccines in the US may be able to provide long-term immunity, possibly more so with the help of a booster shot. How long-term? That is yet to be discovered. However, this idea is being backed by a couple recent studies, one showing infected patients who gave bone marrow samples 7-8 months after infection showed memory B cells in the bone marrow that could act as long-term protection against COVID-19, as well as another study showing recovered individuals presented with changes in memory T cells aimed at detecting COVID-19. See the articles linked below.

Need a brush up on how the body fights and detects viruses and bacteria? Think of viruses and bacteria as invaders hijacking your body's resources for their own gains. Our immune system has various types of immune cells geared towards keeping our body safe. Some cells act like sentinels and alert other immune cells of the area of danger that requires response. Some cells act as taggers, basically tagging the viruses and bacteria with little "Attack Me!" stickers to help make it easier for the cavalry (once they arrive) to identify the intruders. Some of our immune cells have general all-purpose tools to fight viruses and bacteria, like foot soldiers, trained for battle but not part of the elite squad. For most things, they can get the job done. Other immune cells have specialized tools specifically designed to quickly take down a specific bacteria or virus (these generally take longer to develop and respond to first time invaders). Some immune cells' jobs are to remember what a specific virus looked like and what tool/s worked best against the that virus to allow your body to mount quicker, more effective and efficient future responses to repeat invaders.

Why don't we have long-term immunity to all viruses and bacteria we've previously encountered? Long-term immunity is dependent on how quickly the body can adapt to how quickly a virus or bacteria mutates. If a virus is mutating faster than our body can keep up with, long-term immunity is not possible. If a virus or bacteria never mutates or is mutating slowly but always maintaining the one aspect of itself that the immune system associates with that type of virus/bacteria, long-term immunity is possible.

Here's a simplified analogy. Think of someone you know who wears the same thing every day and their personality is always the same. You'd be able to identify them anytime anywhere, a year from now, 10 years from now, 20 years from now, forever. You know what they look like, their personality and how to handle them. Vaccines work great here for long-term immunity.
Now think of someone you know who wears mostly the same clothes everyday but changes a few accessories here and there (just a little mutation), but they're still relatively easy to identify, their personality changes gradually over time but slowly enough that you still know how to handle them relatively well even if you saw them 10 years later, but it changes enough that you'd need some help re-identifying them and learning how to handle them 20 years later (now you need a booster shot to help your body understand, project for further mild changes and understand how to handle those changes down the road).
Now think of someone you know who changes their entire outfit every day (from their shirts to their shoes, glasses, colored contact lenses, wigs, etc) and is constantly going in for plastic surgery. Vaccines will not work well for these guys.

More research is needed, but so far COVID-19 is looking like one of those people who just changes a few accessories here and there.

If you want to get into the nitty gritty science, click on the links below:
- https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/26/health/coronavirus-immunity-vaccines.html
- https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-021-03647-4
- https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.12.08.416636v1
- https://immunology.sciencemag.org/content/6/59/eabj1750
- https://immunology.sciencemag.org/content/6/58/eabi6950

For a simplified infographic of how the mRNA vaccines work, click this link below:
-https://www.health.state.mn.us/diseases/coronavirus/vaccine/mrna.pdf

Important immune cells survive in the bone marrow of people who were infected with the virus or were inoculated against it, new research suggests.

05/14/2021

The CDC has updated their guidelines and many activities have now become safe again for fully vaccinated individuals. But what does "fully vaccinated" mean and what does that mean for every day activities, travel and international law? Check out the CDC's information below!

Have You Been Fully Vaccinated?
In general, people are considered fully vaccinated:
- 2 weeks after their second dose in a 2-dose series, such as the Pfizer or Moderna vaccines, or
- 2 weeks after a single-dose vaccine, such as Johnson & Johnson’s Janssen vaccine
If you don’t meet these requirements, regardless of your age, you are NOT fully vaccinated. Keep taking all precautions until you are fully vaccinated.

If you have a condition or are taking medications that weaken your immune system, you may NOT be fully protected even if you are fully vaccinated. Talk to your healthcare provider. Even after vaccination, you may need to continue taking all precautions.

What You Can Start to Do
If you’ve been fully vaccinated:
- You can resume activities that you did prior to the pandemic.
- You can resume activities without wearing a mask or staying 6 feet apart, except where required by federal, state, local, tribal, or territorial laws, rules, and regulations, including local business and workplace guidance.
- If you travel in the United States, you do not need to get tested before or after travel or self-quarantine after travel.
- You need to pay close attention to the situation at your international destination before traveling outside the United States.
- You do NOT need to get tested before leaving the United States unless your destination requires it.
- You still need to show a negative test result or documentation of recovery from COVID-19 before boarding an international flight to the United States.
- You should still get tested 3-5 days after international travel.
You do NOT need to self-quarantine after arriving in the United States.
- If you’ve been around someone who has COVID-19, you do not need to stay away from others or get tested unless you have symptoms.
- However, if you live or work in a correctional or detention facility or a homeless shelter and are around someone who has COVID-19, you should still get tested, even if you don’t have symptoms.

What You Should Keep Doing
For now, if you’ve been fully vaccinated:

- You will still need to follow guidance at your workplace and local businesses.
- If you travel, you should still take steps to protect yourself and others. You will still be required to wear a mask on planes, buses, trains, and other forms of public transportation traveling into, within, or out of the United States, and in U.S. transportation hubs such as airports and stations. Fully vaccinated international travelers arriving in the United States are still required to get tested within 3 days of their flight (or show documentation of recovery from COVID-19 in the past 3 months) and should still get tested 3-5 days after their trip.
- You should still watch out for symptoms of COVID-19, especially if you’ve been around someone who is sick. If you have symptoms of COVID-19, you should get tested and stay home and away from others.
- People who have a condition or are taking medications that weaken the immune system, should talk to their healthcare provider to discuss their activities. They may need to keep taking all precautions to prevent COVID-19.

What We Know
- COVID-19 vaccines are effective at preventing COVID-19 disease, especially severe illness and death.
- COVID-19 vaccines reduce the risk of people spreading COVID-19.
What We’re Still Learning
- How effective the vaccines are against variants of the virus that causes COVID-19. Early data show the vaccines may work against some variants but could be less effective against others.
How well the vaccines protect people with weakened immune systems, including people who take immunosuppressive medications.
- How long COVID-19 vaccines can protect people.

As we know more, CDC will continue to update our recommendations for both vaccinated and unvaccinated people.

Want to learn more about these recommendations? Read our expanded Interim Public Health Recommendations for Fully Vaccinated People.

COVID-19 vaccines protect against COVID-19. Get safety info and more.

05/04/2021

As summer approaches with children spending more time indoors and on electronic devices it is important to keep their eye health in mind. Too much screen time (and not enough outdoor time) can increase their risk of progressive myopia, or near-sightedness. While small amounts of uncorrected myopia result in headaches, eye strain, eye fatigue, and dry eyes in young children, high myopia can increase the risk of retinal tears, cataracts, macular degeneration and other sight-threatening conditions.

Check out this article for more info! https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/kids-computer-eye-strain/2021/04/23/2f4ca928-988c-11eb-a6d0-13d207aadb78_story.html

Feeling unprepared to direct your kids away from screen time overuse? Try incorporating a set plan your kids can follow for screen time and stick to it! We have ours written on a magnetic whiteboard.

Need an idea? What works well for my kids is earned screen time and penalty rules. Screen time is earned through grades and chores. Chores must be inspected by an adult after completed, asking for pre-inspections and pointers is encouraged (subpar work earns half time, excellent work earns full time, poor work = redo). Kids are responsible for monitoring and recording their screen time (my girl likes to handwrite this on a spreadsheet I made for her, my boy likes to log it into the family app we use). We've told them we wanted a system that recognizes better when they're being responsible and rewards them for it. They've liked this.

Grades: last grades in each class are viewed every Friday and we take their lowest grade (A = 1 hr, B = 30 min, C = 15 min, D/F = 0 min).

Chores: each child has 4 main chores that swap each week and are worth 30 mins of device time each. If all main chores are not completed each week, they get a 20 min penalty.

Additional Chores: Other chore options aside from their main chores are 1st come, 1st served. Each additional chore is worth 10-20 mins. Kids can choose to do more or not.

Recognition of responsibility:
- 30 min break from devices every 1 hr AND all time immediately logged (if both are done - bonus 20 mins end of day)
- 20 mins reading and 1 min multiplication flashcards daily (if done before 6:30pm - bonus 20 mins)

Penalties are clearly written: example - 10 min penalty each time we inquire if they've recorded their time and they have not OR each time they go over 1 hr without a 30 min break, 20 min penalty if you hit your sibling (zero tolerance, even for accidents - be more aware of your surroundings next time)

We've found kids complain less about doing their chores, are proud to show off their work for inspection (they love having our attention and knowing they did a job well done) and have stopped putting off/complaining/whining about having to read and do math problems daily. They monitor themselves well to ensure they get maximum bonus time and avoid penalties. I've enjoyed making sure they understand how to perform basic life skill tasks properly and they've also been more apt during their 30 min breaks to want to spend family time together playing cards, board games, or getting additional chores done.

Since the pandemic, kids have spent a great deal of time just learning online, which may hurt their vision. But there are some easy hacks that can help.

03/10/2021

If you are currently unable to get an appointment for a COVID-19 vaccine with your local health department and would like to be contacted before potential extra doses expire and may go unused check out this article.

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/09/health/covid-vaccine-leftover-doses-dr-b.html

Also, check out your local department of health (DOH) website to check out how to get on their waiting list.

Lake County, FL's DOH site sends text updates to let you know you have made their waiting list and send texts weekly to let you know they still have you waitlisted. A person will call by phone to schedule your appointment once vaccines become available.

Each county's protocol may differ, so visit their website for more information. Remember, a vaccine is not a cure, it is a means to pre-prep the body to recognize a disease and more quickly mount an immune response - which can make the difference between a severe case of disease and mild case. Stay safe, stay alert, and stay compassionate as we progress through this together.

More than half a million people have signed up for Dr. B, a service that promises to match them with clinics struggling to equitably dole out extra doses before they expire.

01/05/2021

With the start of a new year, we hope for positive changes. Unfortunately, for many hospitals they're off to a grim start. https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2021-01-04/los-angeles-hospitals-cannot-keep-up-covid-19-surge-illness

Cases of COVID-19 and hospitalizations requiring ICU care are on the rise, surgeries are being delayed to reduce transmission and free up ICU beds for more imminent care needs, and the COVID-19 death toll continues to climb.

For the few able to receive the first shot of the first round of COVID-19 vaccines, please be aware that the vaccine is not a cure, nor does it mean you are no longer capable of passing the virus on to others. It is important to continue guidelines to protect others and yourself: wear a non-vented mask, wash your hands, and social distance from others when possible. Additionally, keep in mind in some cases the vaccine may take a few weeks to prepare your body to fight potentially infectious exposure to the virus. Whether or not you have received the vaccine, remain cautious for the sake of yourself and others.

For an overview on myths about the vaccine see the following article: https://newsnetwork.mayoclinic.org/discussion/covid-19-vaccine-myths-debunked/

L.A. County health agency tells EMTs not to transport by ambulance those who have virtually no chance at recovery.

01/02/2021

It is never too late to start exercising! Best wishes to all in this New Year to live safer, live healthier, and live happier.

10/31/2020

Happy Halloween from Mai Eyes Optometry!

10/26/2020

Is there such a thing as too much zinc? Short answer: Yes. But why?

Zinc is an essential mineral that can help improve immune function, wound healing, vitamin A metabolism, and slow progression of age-related macular degeneration (AMD). Zinc is typically present in high amounts in the eyes and works as an antioxidant to help prevent damage from oxidative stress.

But how much zinc is too much? The National Institute for Health (NIH) states most adults can tolerate to up 40mg of zinc per day. Long-term intake greater than this can increase risk of harmful side effects - in some cases, excessive zinc intake can even damage the photoreceptors in our eyes that give us vision.

Zinc toxicity can cause nausea, vomiting, stomach cramps, diarrhea and headaches, lower HDL levels (i.e. our good cholesterol), and in more extreme cases, kidney damage, pancreatic damage, liver damage, increase risk of prostate cancer and increase hospitalizations for genitourinary issues (see extreme case examples below of patients ingesting over 800mg of zinc per day). Excessive levels of zinc can also decrease the effectiveness and absorption of certain medications (including antibiotics like cipro, penacillamine used to treat rheumatoid arthritis, and diuretics like hydrochlorothiazide) as well as decrease the body's ability to absorb copper. Copper is an essential mineral for the formation of red blood cells, maintaining healthy bones, blood vessels, nerves, immune function and iron absorption.

Our bodies work best when they have a healthy balance of essential vitamins and minerals. In the case of most things, sometimes less is more. Check your supplements to make sure you are not exceeding recommended values (unless prescribed by your doctor) and make sure your multivitamin isn't putting you over the top if you are taking additional supplements on top of your multivitamin. Always be sure to give a list of all your medications and supplements with dosages to all of your physicians. In this day and age of multiple specialists we are seeing, to help us better help you it is also important to make sure your physicians know which supplements were prescribed to you for what purpose and which were not.

For more information on zinc:
https://ods.od.nih.gov/factsheets/%20Zinc-HealthProfessional/
https://patient.info/doctor/zinc-deficiency-excess-and-supplementation-pro
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK554548/
https://www.webmd.com/prostate-cancer/news/20030701/too-much-zinc-linked-to-prostate-cancer #1
https://www.webmd.com/prostate-cancer/news/20030701/too-much-zinc-linked-to-prostate-cancer #1

Cases of acute zinc toxicity in patients taking over 800mg per day: https://www.mayoclinicproceedings.org/article/S0025-6196(11)62239-8/fulltext

Studies on excessive zinc damage to the eyes:
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/16799065/

Excessive zinc intake related to prostate cancer: https://www.health.harvard.edu/newsletter_article/Zinc_and_prostate_cancer

Zinc overview for health professionals. Research health effects, dosing, sources, deficiency symptoms, side effects, and interactions here.