Unless you live under a log, you’ve probably heard the
saying by now that the eyes are the window to your body.  With today’s technology it is truer than
ever. One of the most advanced technologies I have seen is the Optomap
ultra-wide digital retinal imaging machine. I know that sounds like a mouthful,
but the best way I can describe to you how incredible this machine is:  let us say the inside of the eye is like a
dark room, with no lights on. With older technology, it is like standing in the
doorway and looking in with a flashlight; good, but the view is limited to the area
of the flashlight beam. With the Optomap, it’s like turning the lights on, you
can see the contents of the entire room.

Why is seeing the back of the eye so important?

One reason for this
is, of all the places in the body, the best place to view blood vessels is the
eye. In the eye the blood vessels are on the surface, anywhere else the vessels
are covered with skin and fat, you can’t make out any detail.

So why is this important?

Some diseases, such as high blood pressure, diabetes and
high cholesterol do damage to the blood vessels. The best place to view the
damage done would be the most visible place to see the blood vessels, in the
eye.  Makes sense, right?  So what we see on the vessels in the eye is
actually going on everywhere.  You could
see the same thing if you cut away the skin and fat, (not that I would suggest
this!). In other words, if I see damage on the vessels in the eye from high
cholesterol, then I could conclude that there is damage from high cholesterol
on ALL of the blood vessels, including the vessels around the heart. Sooooooo,
I can tell if the heart is unhealthy by looking in the eye.

Then it also stands to reason, the better the view I can get
looking into the eye, the better idea I can get of what is happening in the
rest of the body.

 Now, do you want me
look in your eye with a flash light, or do you want me to turn on the lights in
the room?