Interview With: Elaine Teo on how to take care of your eyes

Elaine Teo is a national athlete that has been doing taekwondo since she was 10 years old and scored her first gold in 1998 at the Commonwealth Taekwondo Championship in Perth, Australia. The success of her career in this sport would not have been a success if she hadn’t paid so much attention in it. Every Monday to Saturday from 6am to 8am or from 4:30pm to 7pm, she will be continuously training herself, and that does not include other daily exercise she practices. As of 2008, she has already gotten 28 medals, 13 of which are gold medals to do our country proud.

In between her personal life and training for her taekwondo, constantly travelling around the world to take part in different competition, Elaine Teo is currently pursuing in a business course in University Putra Malaysia. Although she’s already 29 years old, she still has about 3 more semesters to go before completing her course. This is majorly because of her career in sports, which caused her to extend her course for 3 years.

You would think that she’s a super woman to singlehandedly juggle between so many things – because I do – but in actual fact, she’s just an average girl like you and me with problems. Recently, we were given the opportunity to interview Elaine Teo where she revealed how her short-sightedness has been a hindrance to her career since she discovered the problem back when she was in Form 1. Back then when contact lenses were not popular, she had to fight with a blur vision but thankfully, her power was only about 100+- and she did not let that get in her way. About two years later when she first discovered contact lenses after being introduced by a friend, her problem was almost solved but still had difficulties especially when she gets hit on the face, causing the lenses to dislocate in her eyes and even fall out.

She has considered Lasik treatment to correct her vision, but while she is still doing Taekwondo, she will not be taking the risk and will instead, pay more precaution to keep her eyes healthy. Several advices she gave us during the interview was to always clean your contact lenses properly, do not wear them for too long a day and to always switch to glasses when possible. To date, Elaine Teo only opts to wear contact lenses when absolutely necessary – during matches and practice – and will never wear them for more than 6 hours a day. As for maintaining her eyesight so the power does not increase further, when doing her daily exercise, she will try to look far away to keep her eyes relaxed and always look at green things such as the mountains to sooth her eyes.

After going through her first comprehensive eye-checkup that tested not only her vision power, but also the health of her eyes, cornea and such, Elaine Teo strongly advice the public to get their eyes checked up more often. If it wasn’t because she was sponsored by Johnson & Johnson for that checkup, she would’ve never realized that her power has increased over the years, making it worst. Currently, she is using Acuvue Daily Disposable Contact Lenses and has been using it since she was introduced to it right before her competition in the last Olympics in Beijing. She also mentioned how comfortable they make her eyes and she can never switch back to monthly disposable lenses anymore. Plus, daily disposable lenses are easier for her hectic schedule – she won’t have to spend so much time a day cleaning the lenses, make sure they are soaked more than 8 hours a day and such.

Buying contact lenses off the shelves of your local optometrist is never enough; on top of checking for power changes in your eyesight, it is recommended that you do a thorough examination for your eyes. Here’s a sample of what Elaine Teo had when she was recommended to an optometrist for her eye checkup:

Instruments and Tests in Vision Space Optometrist

	Tonometer To measure the pressure within the eye. Too high the pressure will indicate risk of glaucoma, too low will indicate risk of eyeball rupture. The pressure of the eye was build up by the fluid in the eye. Testing by this machine is simple; it will not touch the eye, just a soft air puff blowing out.
	Fundus Camera Taking picture inside the eye (retina). To check for condition of the retina and to detect certain eye diseases, such as glaucoma, macular degeneration, retinopathy etc. Like normal photography, with a closer distance. Retina is a layer of nerve formed with millions of light sensitive sensor to capture light/image that you see (like the film of a camera).
	Slit Lamp To check the front/anterior part of the eye especially for contact lens wearer. To detect infections, dry eye, cataract, allergy reaction, swelling etc. Just a slit of light shinning towards the eye, non-invasive. It’s a must to check if a person wants to wear contact lens healthily.
	Ophthalmoscope A portable instrument to check parts inside the eye. To detect cataract, glaucoma, and diseases related to retina. And to check for floaters. Like a torch light, just shinning the soft light to the eye.
	Retinoscope To measure the power/prescription of the eye without the respond from the patient. Mostly used for children and illiterate people. Light source coming out.
	Keratometer To measure the curvature of the eye’s front part/cornea. For contact lens fitting purpose. Non-invasive, light coming out. Cornea, a very important part of our eyes, transparent, it is where the contact lens will sit on.
	Colour Vision Chart To check for colour vision defect.