Michael Ibarra, MD

• What factors contribute to durability of glasses?

  To choose durable glasses, at first you should choose durable frames. Some memory mental frames are good and can hardly get broken. Frames using titanium, stainless steel and Flexon are more durable. Then you should consider the type of lens. If you play sports a lot, you should avoid glass lens. Polycarbonate lens is good but can get scratched easily. You need to add an anti-scratch coating on it.

• Do I have to remove contact lenses before using allergy eye drops?

  You should put the eye drops at least 5min before wearing contacts. Most eye drops contain preservatives and the pharmaceutical agent which may get stuck in the lens over time. So you should not use eye drops when wearing contacts.

• At what age is it best to have lasik surgery?

  It is better to have lasik surgery around 20 and make sure your vision has been stable for at least 2 years. If your prescription is still changing, it is useless to have lasik surgery.

• Why eyesight disorders can be corrected by wearing glasses?

  Nearsighted individuals cannot clearly see things that are distant. This happens because the light rays come into focus in front of the retina. Farsighted individuals have the opposite problem. The shape of their eyes causes the light rays to come into focus behind the retina, causing things that are near to them to be out of focus. Some people have blurry vision due to an astigmatism, or a condition where the curvature of the eye is irregular, creating a second focal point within the eye. All three of these common problems can be corrected with glasses. Eyeglass lenses are curved pieces of glass. The curvature of the lens bends the light rays as they approach your eye. This helps the rays focus on your retina, instead of behind or in front of it.

• Can regular glasses be tinted as prescription sunglasses?

  You can make it prescription sunglasses by tinting it to any color you want. But the color has nothing to do with UV protection. You need to add an UV protection coating to protect your eyes from UV rays.

• Why can I see better with plastic frames?

  Some high myopes find that they can see better with plastic frames rather than metal ones with nose pads. The distance between the back surface of the lenses and the front of the eyes is named vertex distance, which can be increased by equipping nose pads in metal frames. Plastic frames with a shorter vertex distance are more suitable for highly myopic people. More specifically, some metal frames have unadjusted nose pads, creating a greater vertex distance and making the wearer see a poor-fitting bridge easily. Plastic frames do not involve any nose-pad adjustment and the bridge will always stay at a right place.

• Is it ok to use allergy eye drops during pregnancy?

  First, you should try to relax, anxiety and stress are not good for the baby. There should be no big deal to use eye drops. If you are quite worried about this, go to the hospital and have an exam to make sure the baby is all right.

• Can I get glasses with my contact lens prescription?

  Unfortunately, no. Doctors make small changes to contact lens prescriptions that they do not make to eyeglasses prescription. So it is better to ask your optician for an eyeglass prescription.

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