Dry Eyes, Digital Screens, and What Your Vision Is Trying to Tell You

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Vision health impacts every aspect of our daily lives, yet many of us overlook crucial warning signs our eyes are sending. Dr. Cal, an Air Force veteran turned eye care specialist and owner of Eagle Vision Eye Care and Eye Spa, joins us to share eye-opening insights about conditions we might be dismissing.

That burning sensation when staring at screens? The occasional blurry vision that clears after blinking? Those "stuck together" eyelids in the morning? These aren't just minor annoyances – they're your body signaling potential dry eye syndrome. Dr. Cal explains how this increasingly common condition connects to everything from our digital habits to underlying health conditions like diabetes. His holistic approach focuses on treating the root causes without medications, ensuring eyes receive proper nutrients to maintain optimal health.

Most fascinating is the discussion about children's vision health in our screen-dominated world. Dr. Cal reveals how excessive electronics use is causing abnormal eye elongation in kids, progressively worsening their vision. Through innovative treatments like orthokeratology, his practice helps slow this deterioration while eliminating the need for daytime corrective lenses – a game-changer for young athletes and active children. Beyond eye care wisdom, Dr. Cal shares powerful entrepreneurial advice for anyone facing business challenges: "Find your purpose, find your why" and "don't compare yourself to someone else's endpoint when you're at the beginning." His journey from military service to specialized eye care embodies the persistence and passion he advocates.

Ready to discover what your vision is trying to tell you? Listen now and consider scheduling your comprehensive eye health evaluation – because seeing clearly is about much more than just vision correction.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome back everybody to the podcast, where
we uncover the stories behindthriving businesses and bring
you the expert insights straightfrom the source.
It's my pleasure to be able tointroduce to our listeners today
Dr Cal.
He owns a company called EagleVision Eye Care and Eye Spa.
So good morning, dr Cal.

(00:21):
How you doing?
Good morning, dda, glad to behere.
So good morning, dr Kyle.
How are you doing?
Good morning, dda, glad to behere.
Awesome, yeah, I love the logo.
I love everything in thebackground.
Very nice job, I love that alot.
So, for our listeners, I justwant to let you guys know I'm
your host, dda, and in today'sepisode we're going to bring you
behind-the-scenes experiencesand give you valuable insight.

(00:42):
This podcast is your go-tosource for learning about the
businesses that shape ourcommunities and discovering how
to make the most of theirservices and listeners.
If you do like this content andyou want to see more of it,
please like and subscribe.
Even feel free to leave acomment if you have any
questions regarding what we'retalking about on this episode.

(01:05):
So, with that being said, Iwant to go ahead and jump right
in and let Dr Cow share with usa little bit about his
background.

Speaker 2 (01:13):
Dr Cow, Thank you, sir.
Well, first of all, thank youfor having me on.
This is a great opportunity forme to speak about what we do,
and I'm so passionate about whatwe do.
So thank you, sir.
I appreciate this.
You're very welcome.
I'm a former military veteran,Air Force veteran.

Speaker 1 (01:31):
Thank you for your service.
We talked about that as well.

Speaker 2 (01:34):
Yes, sir, and I learned how to care for patients
and I found my purpose.
I said to myself found mypurpose.
I said to myself this is what Ireally enjoy doing.
And from there I left themilitary and started my

(01:54):
undergraduate and I bumped intoa friend of mine who said you
know, I knew you were in themedical corps.
So there's an eye doctor that'slooking for someone to work
part time.
I started working for the eyedoctor and the rest is history.
I said I love this, this iswhat I want to do the rest of my
life.

Speaker 1 (02:09):
I love that and you know when we're talking about
your practice and the differentservices that you bring to your
patients.
One thing that stood out withme in reference to your industry
is all about the dry eyesyndrome, and I think a lot of
people probably experience that,dr Kyle, but don't understand.

(02:31):
You know what is entailed.
I mean, they could suffer fromdizziness, they could suffer
from itching.
I mean all different things.
Can you elaborate a little bitmore on dry eye syndrome?

Speaker 2 (02:44):
Of course.
Thank you, that's a greatquestion.
We all have dry eyes in oneform or another, and dry eyes
can come from different areas ofour lives, whether it's the
food we eat, our work,environment, immune disease that
we might have.
There are different, differentaspects that can affect dry eyes

(03:05):
, or all of the above.
It can lead to headaches, itcan lead to poor work, it could
lead to not getting enough sleep.
It can lead to so many things.
So what we do is we're aholistic practice.
We don't give you any type ofdrugs or injections.
We work on your body, we workon your eyes, making sure your

(03:27):
eyes provide the propernutrients and fluid that your
eyes deserve to kill thebacteria, keep your eyes looking
healthy and clean and keep youworking properly.
That's our goal to keep youreyes looking healthy, clean and
refreshed with the propernutrients.
That's what we do in our clinic.

Speaker 1 (03:48):
I love that, and so let me ask you a question.
If someone one of our listenersis experiencing what type of
symptoms would they experienceexperience in letting them know
that they have dry eye?
What do they need to look for?

Speaker 2 (04:04):
Another great question.
When you look at your computerscreen and sometimes it might
get blurry and then you squeezeyour eyes and gets clear again,
that's a symptom of dry eyes,believe it or not.
If you're always rubbing youreyes, if your eyes are always
red and you're using those eyedrops to get rid of the redness
and it comes back, that's asymptom of dry eyes.
Some patients say my eyes feellike they're sandpaper.

(04:27):
Some patients say when I wakeup in the morning, my eyelids
are stuck together.
Those are symptoms of dry eyes.
There's so many subtle cluesthat your body is trying to tell
you that your eyes are notproducing producing enough
moisture.

Speaker 1 (04:40):
Oh, I love that.
And you know, people talk aboutdiabetes, right, and diabetes
can be caused by so manydifferent factors.
Does the eye itself contributeto that?

Speaker 2 (04:57):
Yes, it can.
What happens with diabetes?
Diabetes starts by affectingthe smaller blood vessels in
your body.
Guessabetes starts by affectingthe smaller blood vessels in
your body.
Guess where a lot of thosesmaller blood vessels are In
your eyes.
So diabetes can start to damagethose blood vessels and it can
show up in your eyes.
That's why we suggest stronglysuggest a yearly eye health

(05:19):
evaluation where we can bringyou in, do images, look at the
different parts of your eyes andwe can see diabetic changes and
one of those changes dry eyes.
So we start seeing the effectsof diabetes on your eyes.
First of all, we're going tocontact your primary care
physician to say something'sgoing on here.

(05:39):
Second of all, we're going tocare for the dry eye segment of
the part of the eye wherediabetes can affect.

Speaker 1 (05:48):
Interesting.
You know I was also thinkingabout the difference between Dr
Cowell, between people wantingto wear eyeglasses versus lenses
.
Can you elaborate on thedifference and why do people go
either route or both?

Speaker 2 (06:08):
Well, I would say eyeglasses is a form of vision
correction, right?
Some people feel morecomfortable with the frames on
their face.
Some people like the way theylook with eyeglasses.
It can be a fashion statementWith contact lenses.
Some people do not like the wayframes feel on their face, so

(06:28):
they go with the contact lenses.
We take it a step further.
At Ego Vision Eye Care we do aform of treatment that's called
orthokeratology and what this is?
This is a form of treatmentwhere you wouldn't even need to
wear glasses or contact lenses.
Some people don't want to wearglasses or contact lenses at all
.
We even take it even furtherfor children.

(06:50):
Because of the advent ofelectronics, the eye is
abnormally getting longer insidethe head with children and that
should not be happening andthat causes their vision, their
distance vision, to get worseand worse and worse.
So we do a form of treatmentcalled orthokeratology to slow
down that growth.
What kids love is they don'thave to wear glasses or contacts

(07:14):
at all during the day.
Our youth athletes, they loveit.
But what we love about it, whatwe're passionate about, is that
we're slowing down thatnearsightedness.
We're keeping it from gettingworse and worse and worse.

Speaker 1 (07:29):
I love what you said, too, about electronics.
You know, since the, since thedawn of all this, the
electronics coming intoexistence, you know more and
more, and everyone is using themmore and more.
Do you see that there is aassociation between your eyes,

(07:49):
maybe getting worse because ofelectronics?

Speaker 2 (07:53):
Yes, totally.
You talk about dry eyes.
Dry eyes have been increasingamongst all of us from using
electronics.
We're not blinking as much,we're staring at these screens
and it's starting to deterioratethe glands that forms the
moisture in your eyes.
That's part of our dry eyetreatment to keep those glands

(08:15):
healthy.
And also electronics.
Kids are staring at thesescreens from the time they're
one to two years old allthroughout their lives and it's
causing that deterioration inthe growth of the eye and it can
cause all kinds of damage tothe back of the eye.
So with our treatment and orthokeratology we're stopping that.

(08:36):
We're keeping that damage fromhappening and keeping their
vision from getting worse andworse and worse.
So, yes, electronics has beenthe cause of a lot of these
things, but electronics are notgoing away.
So if you have that holisticcare to help with the dry eyes,
to keep that eye from gettinglonger and longer inside a
child's head, that's where westep in and that's what we can

(09:01):
proudly and passionatelypractice.

Speaker 1 (09:06):
That's such great information, dr Kyle, for our
listeners as well.
One thing I also want to kindof would like for you to share
is you know there are listenershere that either want to get
into your industry or wanted tobe a business owner, or
currently are business owners,and maybe they're trying to get
over that hill.
Maybe one or two, some advicefor them to keep pushing forward

(09:29):
and what to look for.

Speaker 2 (09:32):
Oh well, first of all , I would say find your purpose,
find your why.
Find something that will driveyou when the business is up, but
especially when the business isdown.
You have to know what you wantto do, you have to like what

(09:52):
you're doing, but you also haveto trust yourself that you're
doing the right thing.
That's what's going to driveyou.
All businesses have theirwinter season, that down season,
when profits are not coming in,you're not making enough money.
You might say to yourself well,am I doing this?
Should I quit?

(10:12):
No, if it's your purpose, ifit's your, why?
If it's what you really want todo, then drive yourself.
You know what you want to do,you like what you want to do and
you trust that you're doing theright thing.
And I would.
I would say this as well whenyou think about what you're
doing and you think of someonedoing something that that, hey,

(10:34):
that's what I want to do, do notcompare yourself to their end
point.
Do not do that.
You're at the beginning.
They had trials andtribulations to get to where
they are right now.
Just push yourself because youfound your purpose.

Speaker 1 (10:53):
I love that Again, great advice and a couple of
things I took away from that ispassion.
Don't give up.
And as business owners, that'sone thing that sometimes we're
sitting on that edge, on thatfence, thinking, my gosh, am I
doing the right thing?
What you're doing, and youreally believe it's going to

(11:17):
build the relationships, whatyou offer to the community, then
again, over time, it will lendto be in your favor.
With that being said, as wewrap up, could you provide our
listeners with the phone number,as well as a website to get a
hold of you if they want anyadditional information?

Speaker 2 (11:38):
Of course, our office phone number is 407-324-3633.
And the best way to get intouch with our practice is
through our website, eagleVision Eye, spelled E-Y-E
eaglevisioneyecom, e-y-eeaglevisioneyecom.
You can schedule consultations,you can reach out to us.

(12:00):
That is the best way, andyou'll also be able to look on
our website and see ourdifferent specialties and see
the different things that wehelp to keep the eye nice and
healthy.

Speaker 1 (12:12):
Well, dr Cal, thank you so much for taking time out
of your busy schedule to be ableto discuss your services and
what you provide to thecommunity regarding your
business, and we definitely wantto wish you the best in success
in the near future as well.

Speaker 2 (12:28):
Thank you, sir.
Thank you for this opportunity.
I really appreciate it.
You're very welcome.

Speaker 1 (12:33):
Thank you for tuning in to First Media Consulting
Podcast.
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