Lack of Treatments

[UncertainOpto]

Do any of you become frustrated with the lack of treatments that optometrists can offer? It seems like a lot of common symptoms like floaters, light sensitivity, twitching, and advanced ocular disease are not treatable by optometrists. Please correct me if I am mistaken.

As an aside, which treatments do you find yourself most commonly providing to patients?

---

Members don't see this ad.

 

[FinnMac]

Do any of you become frustrated with the lack of treatments that optometrists can offer? It seems like a lot of common symptoms like floaters, light sensitivity, twitching, and advanced ocular disease are not treatable by optometrists. Please correct me if I am mistaken.

As an aside, which treatments do you find yourself most commonly providing to patients?

What state doesn't let you treat all of those?

 

[UncertainOpto]

What state doesn't let you treat all of those?

Which specific treatments would you prescribe for each? I’m under the impression that optometrists have to refer out for many of these symptoms.

 

[percyeye]

Do any of you become frustrated with the lack of treatments that optometrists can offer? It seems like a lot of common symptoms like floaters, light sensitivity, twitching, and advanced ocular disease are not treatable by optometrists. Please correct me if I am mistaken.

As an aside, which treatments do you find yourself most commonly providing to patients?

I see and treat most of these conditions almost every day. Not sure what you mean by refer them out.

Floaters? That'll be an office visit and dilation to rule out and retina tear/detachment and maybe charge an Opto$ fee to help take a look.
Light sensitivity? That'll be an office visit and as long as there is nothing wrong medically I'd recommend prescription sunglasses or maybe Transition lenses.
Twitching? Well we better do an office visit to take a look at that
Advanced ocular disease? Lets coordinate with a specialist if needed but also we better help monitor by running an OCT, Visual Field etc or any other medical testing that needs to be done. Depending on how severe lets see ya back in 3 to 6 months for another office visit

Not only can we handle all of that we call that a good morning of making money in the eye business.

 

[UncertainOpto]

I see and treat most of these conditions almost every day. Not sure what you mean by refer them out.

Floaters? That'll be an office visit and dilation to rule out and retina tear/detachment and maybe charge an Opto$ fee to help take a look.
Light sensitivity? That'll be an office visit and as long as there is nothing wrong medically I'd recommend prescription sunglasses or maybe Transition lenses.
Twitching? Well we better do an office visit to take a look at that
Advanced ocular disease? Lets coordinate with a specialist if needed but also we better help monitor by running an OCT, Visual Field etc or any other medical testing that needs to be done. Depending on how severe lets see ya back in 3 to 6 months for another office visit

Not only can we handle all of that we call that a good morning of making money in the eye business.

Thanks for your response. While you may be able to diagnose the cause of floaters, twitching, etc, the actual treatments would need to be performed by an ophthalmologist, right?

 

[percyeye]

Thanks for your response. While you may be able to diagnose the cause of floaters, twitching, etc, the actual treatments would need to be performed by an ophthalmologist, right?

Depends what is wrong. If there is a tear or detachment then they'd go to Retina. If it is just a new PVD then there is no treatment necessary. With a twitching eyelid you don't normally do much anyways unless it is severe enough to get Botox.

Treatment wise we do quite a bit. I think you need to do some research on how much an Optometrist can do.

 

[Snakedoctor1]

Thanks for your response. While you may be able to diagnose the cause of floaters, twitching, etc, the actual treatments would need to be performed by an ophthalmologist, right?

There really are no "actual treatments" for either of these issues. Finding the cause of the floaters is exactly what needs to be done. If there is no retinal abnormality, treatment is not indicated, because in order to remove all floaters you would need a vitrectomy. This is never done simply to "treat floaters" in the absence of a retinal break/detachment/tear.

Twitching can result from a number of underlying causes, and the most common are simple day to day issues such las lack of sleep, too much caffeine (or too little), or stress. Rarely are either of these extremely common and relatively normal findings directly treated, as there is no direct treatment. Again, you're looking for the underlying cause.

Most non-surgical eye problems can and are treated by an optometrist.