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10 Ways to Maintain Your Eye Health

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1. Get an Annu­al Dilat­ed Eye Exam

Adults should have a year­ly dilat­ed eye exam to detect com­mon con­di­tions like cataracts, glau­co­ma or mac­u­lar degen­er­a­tion. These dis­eases could slow­ly be dam­ag­ing the eye and you would not be aware of the destruc­tion unless you have a dilat­ed eye exam. Be proac­tive and pre­vent blind­ness before its too late, sched­ule your annu­al eye exam (be sure to request dilation).

Ear Tube Surgery

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Place­ment of ear tubes in chil­dren is often per­formed at the hos­pi­tal or at The Sur­gi­cal Cen­ter of DuPage Med­ical Group. The pro­ce­dure is per­formed under gen­er­al anes­the­sia that is admin­is­tered by a mask. In most cas­es, no IV is required. Pro­ce­dure length is vari­able, but often lasts about 15 min­utes. Min­i­mal bleed­ing from the ears can be expect­ed. Once the child has awak­ened from anes­the­sia, is able to drink, and par­ents are com­fort­able, every­one can go home. Imme­di­ate recov­ery from anes­the­sia can last about an hour.

Varicose Veins & Treatments

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Veins are blood ves­sels that car­ry blood back to the heart. To keep blood mov­ing toward the heart, veins have one way valves. When the valves break­down, blood does not flow well and can cause Chron­ic Venous Insuf­fi­cien­cy (CVI) and vari­cose veins. The abnor­mal flow of blood is typ­i­cal­ly referred to as reflux’ since the blood moves back­wards and for­wards. Venous reflux occurs most often in veins clos­est to the skin (super­fi­cial veins) and vari­cose veins can be blue, red, or flesh-col­ored. They typ­i­cal­ly look like cords under the skin and can be twist­ed or bulging. Spi­der veins are like vari­cose veins, but much small­er. The look like small tree branch­es on the sur­face of the skin.

Living with Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS)

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Irri­ta­ble bow­el syn­drome (IBS) is a func­tion­al dis­or­der of the colon that caus­es a vari­ety of uncom­fort­able gas­troin­testi­nal symp­toms. In addi­tion to affect­ing between 25 – 55 mil­lion peo­ple in the Unit­ed States, IBS is the sec­ond high­est cause of ill­ness-relat­ed work absences. Dur­ing nor­mal diges­tion, your brain and gut work togeth­er to send sig­nals to your hor­mones, nerves and the good bac­te­ria found in your gut to acti­vate the mus­cles of your colon. When you are expe­ri­enc­ing an IBS episode, these sig­nals become jum­bled, caus­ing the mus­cles of your diges­tive tract to become tense. This leads to symp­toms such as con­sti­pa­tion or diar­rhea, gas and stom­ach cramp­ing. IBS symp­toms and their sever­i­ty vary by per­son, but often include: