O P T O M D I A R I E S

As an optometry student, anything pertaining to the eyes always peaks your interest. From a cute glasses print on pillowcases to little bunnies with glasses on socks. This morning I was reading the news and was reading how a young 3 time American Olympic gold medalist passed away at the young age of 37. The article I read mentioned that Steve Holcomb was combatting a degenerative eye disease and I went into full on Google searching  optometry-detective mode. The results of my recon yielded that Holcomb had keratoconus (KC). He was diagnosed with it and attempted suicide, but failed. Which brings up a lot of interesting points about KC. KC is a condition in which the the cornea of the eye bulges out in a cone like fashion. Hence, kera (cornea) + conus (cone) = keratoconus. Onset of KC is usually in the teens to 20s and affects both eyes. Condition is usually really asymmetrical by the time patients are around their sweet 16th. It's genetically passed down in ~10% of cases (a

Hello again. Interesting how each time I have a vision rehab assessment (or in this case, my vision rehab final in about 16 hours), I gravitate to this diary. Since my last post, I had a NORA meeting featuring Dr. Marsha Benshir as the speaker. I was very glad she came and spoke for NORA, as it was one of the more informative NORA meetings we've had and I believe it helped spark interest in a lot of 1st year students at school. That made me happy to know that NORA is doing what it's supposed to and it made me feel like I was doing my due diligence as the incoming president of NORA. Dr. Benshir was very passionate about the field and was a great example to show how you can practice optometry outside of the realm of general primary care. After the meeting, Dr. Benshir and I discussed an interesting topic. Multiple personality disorder patients (aka dissociative identity disorder, DID). What we discussed in these patients was mainly how to start treatment of them in an o