"Lasers"

"I have one simple request. And that is to have sharks with frickin' laser beams attached to their heads!" -Dr. Evil

You'd think that shining lasers in peoples' eyes isn't the best medical therapy. Surprisingly ophthalmologists use it for all sorts of treatments from diabetic retinopathy to retinal edema. And you wear the laser as head gear, how cool (or scary) is that! If you just kill off some of the retinal cells you can reduce oxygen demand and cut down on the amount of out of control arteriole growth in the back of the eye. Still, I'd rather avoid a laser in the eye if at all possible, that you very much.

Despite all my complaining, I have seen a bunch of eye pathology and other cool diseases that frequently have eye related problems...sarcoidosis, Wegner's granulomatosis, HLA-B27 ankylosing spondylitis, retinopathy of prematurity, lots of glaucoma, and a guy whose blood sugar was 1663. Talk about off the charts. Plus, unless I decide to become an ophtalmologist (not looking so good right now) this may be my one and only chance to learn about eye problems. It's true ophthalmologists get to do cool things...like transplanting a tooth into an eye to restore sight, I just never get to see them! However, I did observe two cataract surgeries last week which were pretty interesting and relatively non-invasive. With ultrasound and a 2.4 mm incision in the eye you can mix up the lens, extract it from the eyeball and put in a replacement. Way more high-tech than the surgery I saw in Guatemala where you had to make an almost 180 degree incision and then suture the eye back together. Ouch. Still it was a pretty impressive surgery to see in the middle of nowhere. I imagine cataract sugeries must feel pretty rewarding...with a half hour surgery and minimal complications you can reliably restore vision and really improve people's quality of life. You can't say that about many medical interventions.

Sadly, I'm trying to deal my own ophthalmology problem right now (and I don't mean preparing for that test). My wonderfully kitty, Katsumoto (above right), has been scratched in the eye my my devilish little kitty, Catastrophe, and has been all watery discharge and winky, blinky eye pain for the past two days. Hopefully it will improve on its own because my limited eye knowledge definitely does not extend to cats. Though Katsumoto loves to chase the laser pointer around, I don't think shining it in her eye is going to help in this situation.