Eye Health
Our articles about General Eye Health. Written by the medical experts at Assil Eye Institute Los Angeles, CA

To Mask or not to Mask, is that the Question. The Science Behind Face Coverings.
Does a mask stop the Spread of COVID-19? As armament in the fight against the COVID-19 pandemic, face masking has had a bumpy, convoluted, and torturous path. An insistence on baring one’s face has been frequently expressed, sometimes violently. The fervor is further fanned by a sense of loss of civil liberties by some, as […]

When to See an Ophthalmologist ASAP in the Age of Covid-19
With the advent of Covid-19, social distancing, stay in place orders and everything else going on in our lives right now, it is a crazy time. With the obvious general reluctance to go out in public during the coronavirus pandemic, we are asked a lot these days from patients “what eye symptoms can be safely […]

Half of us will be Nearsighted by 2050. Why?
The percentage of people worldwide who are nearsighted is growing, according to research done by the Brian Holden Vision Institute. They looked at 145 studies involving over 2 million participants worldwide to determine the global prevalence of myopia, more commonly known as short sighted or nearsighted (difficulty seeing distant objects). And what they found was […]

5 tips to stop toy-related eye injuries (so you don’t ruin your holiday)!
With the holidays upon us, you may be one of the many people frantically working your way through your list, buying gifts for friends and family. If there are little ones on your holiday gift list, we’d like to remind you of some safety guidelines for choosing toys that will keep your loved ones safe. […]

Can Green Smoothies Support Eye Health?
You’ve probably come across magazine articles touting the health benefits of fruits and vegetables. At first, everyone was into juicing, then along came smoothies. But when we look at the sugar content, carbohydrate load and calories of some drinks being sold, it leaves many of us wondering which foods are seriously beneficial to your health […]

Is That a Stye in My Eye or a Chalazion? What the Heck is a Chalazion?
What’s this bump in my eyelid? A simple question, but the answer can be confusing. The shortest and simplest response is: If it doesn’t hurt anymore, it’s a chalazion. If it’s still painful, it’s a stye.

Are Contact Lens Wearers at Risk During COVID-19?
We’ve been receiving calls from patients asking whether it’s safer to avoid contact lens use and convert to wearing glasses during the coronavirus pandemic. Since we are continually being reminded by public health officials to avoid touching our face, this has created some confusion among contact lens wearers about the safety of continually inserting and […]

Mindfulness Meditation: A New Tool in Fighting Glaucoma
Lowering intraocular pressure (IOP) or eye pressure with medications or surgery is the primary way to slow the progression of glaucoma. If untreated, prolonged elevated eye pressure causes irreversible optic nerve damage (glaucoma) that can ultimately lead to blindness. But what if we can augment medical therapies with mediation to treatment glaucoma as well as […]

10 ways to take better care of your eyes
We’re constantly being bombarded with magazine articles advising us on how to take care of our health, our skin, our hair and even our feet, but very little attention is paid to our eyes. And that’s a shame, given how much we depend on our vision in our everyday lives. Just think about how much […]

Can a simple eye test detect Alzheimer’s?
You may have heard the expression that the eyes are the windows to your soul. But did you know that your eye doctor can tell a lot about your health through an eye exam? In fact, not only can we diagnose retinal diseases such as glaucoma and macular degeneration, but we can also detect diabetes, […]

Shingles in the Eye on the Rise, What You Need to Know
You can call it by its medical name, herpes zoster opthalmicus. Or you can simply call it shingles in the eye. Either way, it can reduce your eyesight to a state of legal blindness. The chickenpox and shingles connection Chickenpox is caused by the varicella zoster virus. In the 1990s, an average of 4 million […]

Superfoods and How They are Healthy for Your Eyes
Studies have proven that certain dietary antioxidants can slow down the aging of the eye, including the retina. The retina is the “film” layer of the eye that becomes the optic nerve and connects to the brain. One example of “instant aging” and rapid recovery is the response to a bright flash of light. We […]