♦ Miss New Jersey of 1998 sought help from Dr. Portfolio before her tour to visit American soldiers in the Middle East. The dust would be a problem with her contacts, so she reached out to Dr. Portfolio for Lasik. The surgery and the USO military show were both successes.
♦ During a routine eye exam of a 48-year-old entrepreneur, Dr. Portfolio found a branch retinal vein occlusion in his left eye. The patient’s peripheral vision was gone—that’s a telltale sign of occlusion—but the patient hadn’t noticed. The patient was referred by Dr. Portfolio to an internist and a diagnosis of hypertension was made. Often, ophthalmologists can diagnose health issues going on elsewhere in the body.
♦ Dr. Portfolio was performing a routine eye exam on a 70-year-old gentlemen and noticed that a cholesterol chip was lodged in one of the patient’s retinal arteries. The doctor referred him for a coratid artery ultrasound, and it was discovered that his artery was 98% obstructed, which is a setup for a stroke. The patient, who had no idea he had cholesterol problems, could not be more grateful, saying “Dr. Portfolio, you saved my life.”
♦ While packing shotgun shells with gun powder, a teenager suffered when the powder unepectedly exploded in his face and burned both of his corneas. The right eye was able to recover over time, so the man could see 20/20 with glasses, but the left eye was only able to recover to 20/50 with glasses. Ten years after the accident, Dr. Portfolio smoothed out the irregular corneal surface and eliminated some of the scarring on the left eye, which resulted in the man seeing 20/20 in that eye without glasses.
♦ An 85-year-old recently visited Dr. Portfolio because he was seeing black and white on his color TV. Soon, he only had the bottom half of his vision. This is called anterior ischemic optic neuropathy. There are two types: arteritic (inflamed arteries) and non-arteritic athero sclerosis (where the arteries are not inflamed). Call your physician if you have similar vision problems; it can be an indicator of something life-threatening.
