the good doctor on: the OCT

Blog # Twelve, the Crazy, Hazy, Days of Summer,

We are in the middle of a heat wave, all the more reason to talk about infrared again. Last week we looked at the uses of infrared, especially at Burlington Eyecare. Infrared sensors are sensitive to heat; night-time security cameras have infrared sensors so we can pick up movement even in dark conditions. I would like to spend more time on the optical coherence tomographer, the OCT, which uses infrared to allow us to see with incredible clarity and detail the inside of your eye. It really is a very exciting tool which has just kept getting better over the past 15 years.

The OCT is a critical part of our eye examinations performed on all our patients that are over 19 years of age. It allows us to detect changes in the retina early, and provide appropriate intervention early, which of course makes the prognosis better. In the summer of 2019 we updated to the latest edition of OCT and our old work horse was shipped to Ghana, Africa to help Medical Mission International.

This new machine, the OCTA, (A for angiography) has opened even more doors for us, enabling us to be able to measure the front of the eye and pick up narrow angles for glaucoma and give more accurate fittings for scleral contact lenses. The angiography package maps blood flow in the choroid, helping us to detect eye conditions that occur because of lack of oxygen. It enables us to help our patients with macular degeneration, which is the number one cause of vision loss in the western world. With regular monitoring and with timely angiography scans we can help patients if their condition worsens and get them where they need to go for timely treatment. As you can see, we are pretty high on this new technology.

The picture you see is a profile of the retina in side view that we obtain with the OCT, a healthy retina actually looks like a book in side profile lying on a desk. Those layers you see are actually layers of cells in the back of the eye. Cool!

Keep cool and stay safe, til next week,

The Good Doctor, Dr. Mark Germain, Burlington Optometrist