Slit Lamp Examinations...?!
Question: Slit Lamp Examinations!.!.!.!?
So, I always freak out during the part of the regular eye exam whenever the eye doctor breaks out the slit lamp!. My nerves get the best of me!.!.!. Can someone please explain to me what actually happens during that part of the exam!? Preferably from both the side of the patient and the doctor!?
I know this sounds silly but, does the slit lamp piece actually touch your eyeball!?Www@Answer-Health@Com
I know this sounds silly but, does the slit lamp piece actually touch your eyeball!?Www@Answer-Health@Com
Answers:
When you go to the eye doctor, and you say that this or that is the problem such as loss of vision, pain, can't see close up, or far away, or to the sides or a combination of symptoms!.
The 'doctor' finds out how good you see by covering each eye and asking you to see the smallest letter you can see and then possibly use a pinhole to evaluate what the vision is without the need for correction, like nearsighted glasses or astigmatism or farsighted correction!.
One checks to see if there are problems seeing to the sides to evaluate whether or not there's a brain lesion!. The eye movements also evaluate certain nerves!. The pupil exam, another set of nerves!.
Then, when one is through with all the way far away from the person evaluations, one takes a look directly AT the eyes!.
The 'best' way is to magnify the eyeball and use a light that can be closed into a slit!. This allows the light to be used to 'cut' the clear parts with the beam of light!. The cornea is transparent!. The lens is supposed to be transparent, but if it's not, that's a cataract!. How bad a cataract!? The slitlamp allows us to evaluate the transparency of those 'clear' tissues or eye organs!. Then certain lenses are used to move the focal point back to the back parts of the eye!. The optic nerve head is only about 1mm in size!. That's 1/25th of an inch!. It's little teeny weeny and hard to see without those lenses or the microscope called the slitlamp to allow an evaluation of the nerve fibers, the blood vessels, the nerve fiber layers, the subretinal tissues such as the choroid, the macula, the center of the retina that allows for "good" vision, reading, etc!.
So the slitlamp is nothing more than a microscope with a certain focal distance attached to a light that can be varied from a round light like a flashlight to a slit that allows precise evaluation of the clear tissues, vessels, retina, nerve fibers, fluid cavities!.
That's all there is to it!.
As a patient all one sees is this BRIGHT light, that isn't THAT bright, but sort of is!. The slitlamp does not touch the eye and usually doesn't get closer than about 2 inches or so to the ocular surface!.Www@Answer-Health@Com
The 'doctor' finds out how good you see by covering each eye and asking you to see the smallest letter you can see and then possibly use a pinhole to evaluate what the vision is without the need for correction, like nearsighted glasses or astigmatism or farsighted correction!.
One checks to see if there are problems seeing to the sides to evaluate whether or not there's a brain lesion!. The eye movements also evaluate certain nerves!. The pupil exam, another set of nerves!.
Then, when one is through with all the way far away from the person evaluations, one takes a look directly AT the eyes!.
The 'best' way is to magnify the eyeball and use a light that can be closed into a slit!. This allows the light to be used to 'cut' the clear parts with the beam of light!. The cornea is transparent!. The lens is supposed to be transparent, but if it's not, that's a cataract!. How bad a cataract!? The slitlamp allows us to evaluate the transparency of those 'clear' tissues or eye organs!. Then certain lenses are used to move the focal point back to the back parts of the eye!. The optic nerve head is only about 1mm in size!. That's 1/25th of an inch!. It's little teeny weeny and hard to see without those lenses or the microscope called the slitlamp to allow an evaluation of the nerve fibers, the blood vessels, the nerve fiber layers, the subretinal tissues such as the choroid, the macula, the center of the retina that allows for "good" vision, reading, etc!.
So the slitlamp is nothing more than a microscope with a certain focal distance attached to a light that can be varied from a round light like a flashlight to a slit that allows precise evaluation of the clear tissues, vessels, retina, nerve fibers, fluid cavities!.
That's all there is to it!.
As a patient all one sees is this BRIGHT light, that isn't THAT bright, but sort of is!. The slitlamp does not touch the eye and usually doesn't get closer than about 2 inches or so to the ocular surface!.Www@Answer-Health@Com