A Blog to Keep You and Your Eyeballs in the Know!

MiSight® – A new tool for fighting worsening vision in children!

For years now, we have had great results working with pediatricians and parents to provide myopia control programs which slow worsening vision in children. Thanks to the launch of a daily contact lens called MiSight back in March, we can now add an FDA approved treatment to the options that are available.We are proud to be one of the only practices in Orange County certified to treat progressive myopia with MiSight®, the ONLY FDA approved option for Myopia Control. In fact, our doctors were among the first 40 doctors in the ENTIRE COUNTRY to begin to control near-sightedness in children with MiSight®. While further advancements are sure to come, this has been a major step forward for ensuring our children are able to have great vision for the rest of their lives.

There has been a trend over the past few decades of children ‘outgrowing’ their parents’ prescriptions. Given the changes that have been implemented in response to the pandemic, there are valid reasons for concern that these vision changes may be accelerated as a result. It turns out, how we use our eyes does matter.

You might ask: ‘why do I care if the prescription increases, can’t you just fix it with new glasses or contacts?’
The simple answer to that is no.

As a child becomes more near-sighted, the eye is growing too large. As a result, the tissues are stretched thinner placing them at greater risk for potentially blinding diseases like glaucoma and macular degeneration, as well as retinal tears and detachments. From a vision standpoint, think of it like pixels on a screen. The eye has a set amount of pixels, and as it becomes more near-sighted, those pixels are spread out and the resolution decreases. So while we may be able to get a highly near-sighted person to be able to see 20/20, the quality of that 20/20 line has been forever decreased since the ‘pixels’ are now spread further apart. These are the main reasons for wanting to slow down vision changes in children: long term ocular health and maintaining high quality vision.

Below are two small changes that you can make to help decrease the risk for worsening vision in your children. If you are interested in learning more about the different treatment options available, or if you want to learn more about things that can be done to decrease the risk, give our office a call to schedule a consultation with Dr. Elson.

Two changes to consider:

  1. Amount of time spent on near activities does matter – rule of thumb is everything in moderation. Ideally we would have a good balance of time spent outside playing and time spent inside on near activities.
  2. Where near activities are performed matters – generally reading a book inside at a desk provides the eye a greater stimulus to get more near-sighted than reading a book outside.

We’re Open! Welcome Back!

We are OPEN and have made changes to ensure your safety

These changes include:


  • We have significantly reduced our schedule to limit the amount of people in the office, and allow time for full cleaning between patients.
  • Surfaces are being sterilized with hypochlorous acid, a naturally occurring, nontoxic cleaner that is approved by the EPA for efficacy against COVID-19.
  • All frames that are handled by patients or staff are being disinfected prior to being put back on the shelves.
  • We are checking the temperature and symptoms of doctors and staff twice a day, and doing the same for our patients at the time of their appointment.
  • For the time being, all individuals entering the office are required to have an appointment and to wear a face covering.
  • Curbside pick-up will be utilized for the dispensing of glasses and contact lenses.
  • Telephone and video appointments will continue to be utilized when appropriate

What does your appointment process look like?

  • The scheduling process is unchanged! Please call the office to schedule, or submit an appointment request online.
  • In order to limit the amount of time our patients spend in the office, we ask that you fill out any required forms prior to your arrival. Along those same lines, copies of insurance cards or drivers licenses can be texted or emailed to the office.
  • When you arrive for your appointment, please call or text the office and we will let you know when we are ready for you to enter. Due to the restrictions on scheduling, it is VERY important that you arrive on time. Arriving late for an appointment may force us to need to reschedule.
  • If you do not have a mask, one can be provided to you at the time of your appointment.
  • Upon entering the office, you will be asked to sanitize your hands and will be taken directly into the pretesting room, where you temperature will be checked and the normal pretesting will be conducted
  • In general, only the patient will be allowed in the exam room with the doctor.  Only one parent or guardian will be allowed in the exam room if the patient is a minor.

We GREATLY appreciate your support in sticking with us through this shutdown. We understand that many of these changes are not ideal and, like you, we hope that many of these changes will be temporary. We will continue to do what is necessary to ensure that you are getting the absolute best care possible, and look forward to welcoming you back into our office.

Sincerely,

 

Dr. Broady, Dr. Elson, and our wonderful staff.

COVID and Contact Lenses

In response to the COVID-19 crisis we have partnered with Vision Source to provide our patients the opportunity to purchase contact lenses directly online. Some of the key advantages of this system is that it allows our patients to benefit from our in office policies and manufacturer rebates, while also providing the opportunity to enroll in programs such as autoshipping to ensure you never run low on your contact lenses again.

Please visit our contact lens webstore by clicking here.

Office Closure – Supporting COVID Public Safety

Given the updated recommendations made by the CDC and leading medical authorities, we have decided to significantly decrease our schedule to do our part in limiting the spread of COVID-19. We will be in the office Wednesdays from 10am-2pm to handle any urgent glasses or contact lens orders, and Dr. Elson will be on-call for any urgent ocular/visual issues. Please call or text if you need us, and we will reach out as soon as possible.

If you experience a medical/vision emergency, or are unsure if your situation requires emergent care, please do not hesitate to contact us. Call, or text us at 714.838.9664, as we will be checking those messages regularly. For more urgent matters, please email Dr. Elson at DrElson@17thoptom.com or call the office to be redirected to his cell phone, and he will set up a time to discuss your issues or see you at the office if needed.

We will continue to closely monitor the situation and communicate with you regarding your visits with us. We appreciate your understanding as we try to navigate these difficult times and continue to provide you the absolute best care possible.

 

Stay Safe and Stay Well,

 

17th Street Optometry Doctors and Staff

PAW Special Events: SALT and lafont Trunk Shows

Hello and Happy Friday to All!

Just a reminder of a few special events we are putting on during Patient Appreciation Week (aka PAW)! Come by and you will have every frame in every color at your finger tips! Also, we will be offering exclusive discounts at the event as well as an opportunity to win a free frame!

Everyone who attends gets a raffle ticket, no purchase necessary! So come on by and take a look, but beware! You will find something that you love……

Patient Appreciation Week! 10/14-10/19

Monday October 14th through Saturday October 19th is a week all about you!

Patient Appreciation Week is jam packed with events, giveaways, and raffle opportunities.  The week is headlined by the unveiling of three new frame lines (Tom Ford, JF Rey, and ) that you will absolutely love, as well as TRUNK SHOWS (and exclusive discounts!) for LaFont and SALT. Give us a call to get on the schedule for a week thats all about you!

 

 

We look forward to seeing you!

 

– Dr. Broady, Dr. Elson, and our Wonderful Staff

Happy Holidays!

As you have probably seen via email, we are giving our staff and doctors the week of Christmas off. As such, we will be closed starting at 1 pm on Saturday 12/22 and will re-open at 9 am January 2nd!

Thank you to our staff for all of their hard work, and a big thank you to all of our patients, it has truly been our pleasure to take care of you and your eyes this past year!

 

– Dr. B and Dr. E

Tustin Unified Health Fair Raffle

This past Wednesday our office was out to support the Tustin Unified School District by participating in their annual health fair. Our table had a jeopardy-style game to earn raffle tickets.

Watch the video below to see the winner!

If your name is Paul and you participated in the raffle, check your text/email to see if you won! Sorry for the extra step, but we didn’t announce the last name because we couldn’t read it!

Thank you to all who came out and had some fun with us!

New Year, New Name!

Tired of hearing our office staff answer the phone “Welcome to Dr. Broady and Dr. Elson’s office, my name is _____, how can I help you”?
Good, because we are tired of making them say it too!

This is one of many reasons we are going to be updating the name of our practice.

We have been laboring over this for quite some time now, and have narrowed it down to two options that we are pretty split on. Given that your opinion is the one that matters most to us, we would really appreciate your help in making the final decision. If you have a moment, we would greatly appreciate your input via the form below.

 

Thank you for your help and we will definitely be sending out an email with the winning name once it is determined!

LASIK Consult Night – Thursday February 22nd!

Thanks to the success of our first LASIK Consult Night, NVISION has agreed to provide another FREE consult night at our office next month. The date is Thursday Night February 22nd, and the offer is $1,000 off full custom LASIK, which includes NVISION’s lifetime commitment. If you have ever had questions about or considered having LASIK this is the perfect opportunity to find out if you are a candidate and answer any questions you may have. 

If you are tired of reading glasses, this is also a great opportunity to find out about the different refractive surgery options to reduce your dependence on those pesky readers!

Appointments have been filling up even faster than our last event, so give us a call today and we’ll make sure a spot is reserved for you!

LASIK NVISION Discount Deal

CALL US AT 714.838.9664 OR CLICK TO SCHEDULE APPOINTMENT ONLINESCHEDULE APPOINTMENT