My four-year-old nephew has just been diagnosed with amblyopia. The
Opthalmologist said he is very far sighted in one eye and slightly far
sighted in the other. He is getting glasses this week, and if that doesn’t
correct it, they will patch his good eye.

Is it likely that he will always have to wear glasses or is this a
condition that will correct itself with treatment? He comes from a long
line of myopes, and none of us have any experience with hyperopia. He is a
twin and was born about a month premature, but he weighed over 5 pounds at
birth. We’ve never noticed either of his eyes turning, and he has very
good eye-hand coordination.

Jenny Dyer

Hi,

I am a Hong Kong guy who is suffering from retinal degeneration. I would
like to know if there is a chance that I will be blind. Here is my story :

************************************************************************

six months ago a huge number of floaters suddenly appeared in
front of both of my eyes, I was scared and went to an opathmologist.
After examination, he told me that there are 8 to 10 small leak holes
on the margin of the retinal of my right eye. My left eye was OK though.

He suggest me to receive laser treatment on my right eye in order to seal
off the holes and decrease the chance of developing into retinal detachment.
I did receive the treatment.

Six months has passed. The doctor said I am OK but should never play
ball games again in my life, cause a blow on my head may cause retinal
detachment. I ask what is the chance that it will finally develop into
retinal detachment, and he told me that because I received laser treatment
early, the chance is low.

I don’t know whether he was trying to comfort me when he said that. I
know that retinal detachment is a serious illness that may lead to
blindness. Therefore, I would like to know the truth.

My question : about how many percent of person who suffers from retinal
degeneration and received laser treatment will still develop into
retinal detachment ?

I don’t need very scientific data. I just want an estimation. I want
to know how big is the chance that I will suffer from retinal degeneration.
I think I should be psychologically prepared if it’s gonna happen.

Thanks in advance for any input. I am most grateful.

Regards,

Henry Lam
Hong Kong

The organizers and helpers for the second annual RP conference will be holding
their big final meeting tomorrow (Tuesday), so if you are interested in
getting information, please email spa…@unicom.org as soon as possible.

I apologize right up front if I spelled the subject wrong.  

My grandmother (in her 80′s) has had them in both eyes.  I don’t know
a lot about this subject.  I am also not near the situation.

She is basically blind in one eye.  She has put off having an
operation on the other eye because of the possibility of losing all
sight in that eye and effectively rendering her blind.  

She has had the operation.  It brought her to 20/25 in that eye.  It
has been about 2-3 weeks since the operation. She has developed a
Central occlusion ?? in that eye.  It has hemmoraghed (sp?).  They
have told her that there is nothing that they can do to drain the
fluid.  If it had been a Branch occlusion, they could drain it.  Does
anyone know if "nothing can be done" is correct?  Her vision has gone
to 20/500 and now sits at 20/50.  

Any help is appreciated.  I would appreciate an e-mail response to
jre…@airmail.net.   Thanks.

I’m working on some embedded image processing code that needs a faster
version of the ansi c library atan2(y,x) function.

If you have any hints, tricks, or pointers to refrences, please don’t
hesatate to reply to mailto:t…@decagon.com

Specifics:
x & y are signed integer values. I only need to resolve integer angles,
0 to 360 degrees (or some scaled equivilent).

Even a single quadrant lookup table is too big for available memory.

I have a 32-bit cpu _without_ an FPU, but with a small cache. Maybe
something that fits in the cache would be faster than a lookup table.
Integer math will definatly be faster than float, double precision math.

Thanks in advance…

Todd Martin

I suffer from both a central retinal vein occlusion in my left eye and
ocular migraine.

For two days in a row, I have had a temporary scotoma in my affected
(left) eye.  Viewed against a cloudy sky with blinking, I can determine
that it is in only one eye.  Moreover, it appears to be purplish and of
varying shape with ragged borders.  One might liken it to an ink splat.
Today for example, it had a hole in it.  After a while it goes away,
usually.  When my occlusion occurred, there were similar symptoms.  I do
not wish to go, nor is it practical, to an ophthalmologist everytime this
happens.

QUESTION: How is one to distinguish between a unilateral occurrence of
ocular migraine from an incipient venous occlusion?

ANOTHER QUESTION: Aside from using intra-ocular pressure reducing drugs
what preventatives are there for venous occlussions?

ONE MORE QUESTION: Are there any new effective treatments for central vein
occlussion that are not worse than the disease?  So far, my conclusion is
that treatment is not very effective until there is a threat of vision
degradation that is much worse than I have now.  That is, when you are
about to go blind, drastic measures may prevent total loss of vision.

This is to advise you of an Internet site for children with disABILITIES
that you may be interested in.  The title and URL for this site:

    Title:  Internet Resources for Special Children (IRSC)
    URL:  http://w3.one.net/~julio_c/

Purpose of the IRSC Home Page:
==============================
IRSC is a World Wide Web (WWW) site dedicated to communicating information
relating to the needs of special children on a global basis in order to:

  –  Provide an international network system between parent groups,
     foundations, educational institutions and medical sites.

  –  Improve the environment for special children.

  –  Act as a central starting point for information.

  –  Unite the many global parent groups.

  –  Provide the information in an attempt to solve many problems related
     to special children (educational, medical, social, personal, etc.)
     and to help realize a happy, comfortable society and environment.

The IRSC Home Page includes links to other WWW sites that provide valuable
information for the following topics:

  –  Adaptive Hardware and Software Computer Aids
  –  Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADD & ADHD)
  –  Aspergers Syndrome
  –  Autism, Fragile X Syndrome & Pervasive Development Disorder (PDD)
  –  Brain Injury (TBI/ABI)
  –  Cerebral Palsy (CP)
  –  Child Amputees
  –  Child Health Care
  –  Cleft-Affected Children
  –  Developmental Delay
  –  Down Syndrome
  –  Financial Planning, Laws, Rights
  –  General disABILITY Links . . .
  –  Hydrocephalus
  –  Mental Retardation
  –  Muscular Dystrophy & Spinal Muscular Atrophy (SMA)
  –  Parenting/Support Resources
  –  Rare Diseases/Disorders/Conditions
  –  Rett Syndrome
  –  Seizure Disorders
  –  Special Education
  –  Tourette Syndrome
  –  Visual & Hearing Impairment

Please take a look at the IRSC Web site and let me know if you have any
comments, questions, other categories or WWW sites (that you’re aware of)
that you feel I should include.

Best Regards,
Julio Ciamarra

E-mail:  juli…@one.net

Bill and Ray, how fast can you read?

Download Vortex1.zip from you favorite shareware site and give me a reply.

This software now set at 1200 words per minute allows me to "read" with
machine assisted vision. Is this for real?

Jim

Regards

Hi,

        I have very dry and sensitive eyes. However I’m using contact lenses.
For the past 2.5 years I’ve used soft ones, but they started making
problems after about 1 year. Now I’ve ordered a new pair of hard contact
lenses.

My Optometrist says that this should solve the problem.

1. Is that true ?
2. Are there really any signficicant advantages of hard vs. soft  
   lenses?
3. Could this problem of dry eyes (without much inflammination) be
   caused by other factors, other then the soft lenses, so it is  
posiible to use soft ones with dry eyes ?

                                Thanks in advance for any reply!
                        You’re really a helpful & cooperating group.