August 30, 2022 - EyeClarity Podcast
A Retinal Hole is a very serious sight-threatening condition. The retina is a very vulnerable tissue in the back of the eye. Because of its vulnerability and integrity, there are many reasons why we need to take really good care of our retinas. So let’s take a look at what causes retinal holes and what you can do about them. Enjoy the show. If you want more, sign up for my newsletter at: www.drsamberne.com.
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
retina, retinal, hole, eye, health, surgical procedure, talk, mitochondria, zeaxanthin, surgery, doctor, inflammation, check, called, red light therapy, supplement, carotenoid, vitamin, therapy, gallbladder
Hello, everyone. It’s Dr. Sam, I’d like to welcome you to my EyeClarity podcast. This is a show that offers cutting-edge information on how to improve your vision and overall wellness through holistic methods. I so appreciate you spending part of your day with me. If you have questions, you can send them to hello@drsamberene.com. Now to the latest EyeClarity episode.
Hey everyone, its Dr. Sam and I’d like to welcome you to my EyeClarity podcast today, I’m taking a hike up in the Carson National Forest, just outside of Taos, New Mexico. So I received a question from a listener who’s got a very serious condition called a retinal hole. And she wants to know what my advice is? Well, first of all, this is a very serious sight-threatening condition. You know, the retina is a very vulnerable tissue in the back of the eye. And it’s made up of over 130 million photoreceptors. And because of its vulnerable, integrity, there are many reasons why we need to take really good care of our retinas. Some of the causes of retinal holes could be moderate to high amount of nearsightedness, or astigmatism. The result of eye surgeries, eye trauma and metabolic imbalances, and this is what I want to focus on here. Because, you know, when we go to the doctor and we get a diagnosis, most likely the condition has been happening for a while. It’s just now you know about it. And so it’s a signal to say, Okay, where am I not imbalance.
And with a retinal hole, the retina first of all needs a lot of fatty acids, omega three fatty acids. In fact, the part of the Omega three that we need the most is the d h, a part of the Omega three, we do not make omega three, we need to get it from outside sources. So that is one of the proactive things that you could do. Another thing that you could do would be to make sure you’re getting enough of the retinol carotenoids, you’ve heard me talk about these lutein, zeaxanthin and acids Anthon. Some really good food sources for lutein and zeaxanthin would be the red, orange, yellow green vegetables. For Astra Xanthine. That’s a marine carotenoid, you could always do a micro algae supplement. Or if you can get some wild caught salmon. That would be another way to get your ass to Xanten. Vitamin A is also really important. And one of the issues I see is that people do get vitamin A, but they’re not absorbing the vitamin A, it’s a fat soluble vitamin. And so you may need to check in with your gallbladder and liver health. And remember, the liver produces bile, and the gallbladder stores it and one of the things that you need in order to be able to absorb vitamin A is bio. And this would go hand in hand with also lutein and zeaxanthin, which are also fat soluble phytochemicals.
So you could check this out with a blood panel with a doctor a functional medicine doctor, or you could go to a Chinese medicine doctor and they could read your pulses, and tell you that way. Some other aspects about retinal holes is a lot of it depends on the location and the depth of the hole. Of course, if it’s not in your line of vision, if it’s off in the periphery, you may be able to bide some time, this is a call that you’re gonna have to make with your doctor to see whether or not you want to repair the hole. Or you want to try some of these alternative therapies that are going to take a while. So you have to really weigh those things, if you’re going to go ahead and get the surgery. Now there are a couple of different surgical procedures. One is using a laser and the other is using a freeze type of therapy where you’re freezing the the area around the hole. And any surgical procedure is really about trying to contain the damage in a small area. And you may need to do that. And then you could start using some of these other things that I’m recommending. Now what can happen when you get this kind of surgical procedure is scar tissue.
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And I’ve talked about in other video blogs about a proteolytic enzyme called serrapeptase. And this sometimes can be used as a digestive aid, and it helps dissolve scar tissue in the body including the eyes. Another supplement you could look into would be natto kinase. So those two things could be used after you’ve had the surgery, if there is some scarring tissue. Now one of the things about retinal holes is that at the very beginning, you don’t know that you have this condition because there’s no symptoms. As it progresses, however, you can get things like waviness in your vision, a dark shadow on your peripheral vision, blurred vision, cloudiness, so if you start getting those things, I would make an appointment with an eye doctor and do a full retinal exam and Oh, CT scan and just get a lay of the land on the health of your retina. Now some other supplements that can be very helpful for retina health would be things like saffron, curcumin, especially if you feel like you’ve got some systemic inflammation, even things like gingko, bilberry, resveratrol, and grapeseed extract.
These are really highly concentrated antioxidants. And they have been found to help retina health. Now the last thing I’m going to talk about is mitochondria. So mitochondria, they live in the retina, there’s a very high concentration of mitochondria in the retina. Mitochondria are very important for the production of ATP. And ATP produces is energy. That helps get rid of things like oxidative stress, free radical damage, inflammation, and the retina because of the concentration of blood vessels that exist in the retina. Sometimes the mitochondria gets, as we say, challenged or compromised. So one of the new therapies on the market is red light therapy. And I’ve talked about this in other podcasts and video blogs. Red light therapy has been shown, especially in small amounts, maybe five to seven minutes in the morning, to help regenerate the eyes. So I think that this would be something for you to explore. And red light therapy helps in the production of ATP because it supports mitochondria health, it also can boost your immune system reduce inflammation, I mean, it does a lot of great things.
And light therapy is one of those tools that I would highly, highly recommend. Now the last thing I’m going to say about any kind of retinal problem, whether it’s a retinal tear, retinal hole, retinal detachment is to check in with the health of your gut. gut health and eye health are very, very related. And so if you’re dealing with any kind of gut, dysbiosis, inflammation, Candida, even conditions like mold or heavy metal toxicity, this is where I think on a systemic level, if you can begin to put the puzzles together around improving your gut health, that’s only going to improve your retina health. Now remember, when you’re on your screen time, you should be using blue blocking filters. Blue light has a tendency to dry out any of the eye tissue that you expose it too. And the the amount of blue light really can wreak havoc on your eye health. So those are some of the things I would suggest again, on a final point, I think you need to work closely with your doctor to see whether you need to get surgery right away or whether you can put it off and do some of these alternative methods. So I want to thank you very much for the question. And that’s our show for today. I want to thank you so much for tuning in. Take good care.
Thank you for listening. I hope you learned something from the EyeClarity podcast show today. If you enjoyed the episode, make sure to subscribe on iTunes or Spotify and leave a review. See you here next time.
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