We have all heard the eyes are the window to the soul.  But you should know they are also a window into our body.  How healthy our body is doing or how UNHEALTHY our body is doing can show in our eyes. Conditions like diabetes, high blood pressure, brain tumour, cancers, high cholesterol are just a few things that can be picked up at a routine eye examination.

So if you are one of the lucky ones who sees great. without the need for glasses or contact lenses, you may not feel the need for having an eye examination - with an optometrist not Dr Google.  

​Just remember even those with great vision can go on to develop health problems with the eyes.  And for many eye related diseases and disorders, vision loss happens.

Want to keep your eye healthy and keep good vision?  A routine eye exam at least every 2 years is something you should do.  

Some other things you can do to keep healthy eyes...
👁 Eat a diet that is rich in colourful vegetables
👁 Don't smoke
👁 Protect your eyes from the UV from the sun - even on cloudy days
👁 Maintain a healthy weight 
👁 Exercise routinely
👁 Take breaks when working on the computer or reading
👁 Protect your eyes and play it safe at work, home and doing sports

If you have great vision,  you still can book in - it's ok - go on.  Click BOOK ONLINE or give us a call on 01635 528844.

Want to check your vision before coming in for your eye exam?  Complete your online vision screening at ​https://visionscreening.zeiss.com/en-GB

Not all varifocals or progressives are made the same.  It's not a one size fits all sort of lens for most people.  And golfers are one of those who need special attention to their glasses. For many, every day varifocals or work glasses just don't work on the golf course.

Sports like golf require that you switch your gaze between close up and distance.  To keep you vision as comfortable as possible with golf when you wear varifocals, the spectacle lens design needs to be tailored to your particular sport needs.  Extra large and balanced distance vision combined with great near vision is needed to help your golf game.  From hitting the ball to tracking the ball to keeping the score - all need to be in focus to keep you performing your best.

Once you have your best prescription and tailored spectacle lenses, choosing the right frame is important.  Light weight and good fitting is key for any sportsman or sportswoman.  In addition, particular care must be made to get the correct tint and anti reflective coating to improve the contrast in all weather.  Great UV protection is needed as well to protect your eyes from the sun's harmful UV which can increase the risk of macular degeneration.

For more information, give us a ring on 01635 528844.  

​

Such an honour to be recognised tonight for the Newbury Town Business Civic Award for my work running a volunteer homeless eye care program in conjunction with Newbury Soup Kitchen at their Tuesday Health Clinic at the Salvation Army. 

The 25th Annual Newbury Town Civic Awards presentation saw the presentations  of

• NEWBURY TOWN CIVIC AWARD
• NEWBURY TOWN YOUNG PERSON'S CIVIC AWARD
• NEWBURY TOWN BUSINESS CIVIC AWARD
• NEWBURY TOWN ENVIRONMENTAL CONTRIBUTION AWARD

I had the pleasure of meeting lots of others in the local community trying to make a difference to our Newbury.  The awards are done every year in recognition of outstanding contributions to the Town of Newbury.  ​Recognising unsung heroes going above and beyond, these awards highly all the volunteers in our area making exceptional contributions.  

To check out the full list of winners visit https://newbury.gov.uk/the-council/civic-office/civic-awards.

Special thanks to the Newbury Town Council for hosting the awards in the beautiful town hall.  

Special congratulations to all the well deserving winners!

International Women’s Day 2022 was a very memorable one for our optometrist, Dr. Valarie Jerome.

In recognition of her strong contribution to entrepreneurship, Valarie was among 100 impressive, multi-achieving female business owners, championed by Small Business Britain’s ƒ:Entrepreneur #ialso100 campaign  invited to attend a special International Women’s Day reception at the House of Lords earlier this month.  
 
“Meeting so many inspirational businesswomen who have set up and are running small businesses all over the UK in such a historic place was delightful.  After 2 years of so much uncertainty and sacrifice for small business owners, it was refreshing to celebrate coming out the other side of the pandemic with fellow entrepreneurs” explained Valarie.
 
The women enjoyed afternoon tea and networking in Westminster, meeting their peers from ƒ:Entrepreneur #ialso from both 2021 and 2022, as well as special guest speaker Labour MP Dr Rosena Allin-Khan, who paid tribute to the power of female entrepreneurship.

Dr. Jerome was named an ƒ:Entrepreneur #ialso100 in 2021, in recognition of her inspiring entrepreneurial journey, which has involved opening up her own independent opticians, Valarie Jerome Optometrists, in late 2019 and representing fellow optometrists from the South East of England on The Association of Optometrist Council.
 
Delivered by Small Business Britain – the leading champion of small businesses in the UK – f:Entrepreneur campaign was launched in 2017 to highlight the stories of amazing female business owners and to help provide inspiration and role models across the wider small business community.

Now in its fifth year, the campaign offers a host of events, training, and networking opportunities to boost skills, capability, and confidence.  Recent research carried out by the campaign this month found that, following the pandemic, nearly a fifth (17%) of women are considering entrepreneurship, with 44% of them citing pursuing a passion as a key motivator, alongside 46% wanting greater flexibility.

“To hear the incredible things that these women do, and the impact they are making, not just in their businesses but in their wider communities, is truly inspiring, and underlines that we must do everything we can to support them,” comments Michelle Ovens CBE, founder of Small Business Britain and the ƒ:Entrepreneur campaign.
​
To see the full line-up of the 100 women featured in this year’s f:entrepreneur #ialso100 campaign visit https://f-entrepreneur.com/fentrepreneur-100/.
 

If you are on a computer many hours of the day, you may be wondering if your computer is damaging your eyes.  There is lots of talk about blue lights and blue light glasses for sale are all over social media feeds lately.  Some people swear by blue light glasses or blue light anti-glare.  Some don't really notice any improvement with it.

Well, first let's talk more about that infamous BLUE LIGHT.  

• First the good...Natually occurring blue light like that from the sun that we get daily can help suppress the body's melatonin (the body's natural hormone that makes us sleepy).  This can help boost your alterness, awareness and some would say concentration during the day.
• Now the bad...blue light has been shown to disrupt your melatonin - your body's natural hormone that makes us sleepy.  Excessive nighttime exposure to blue light from man-made sources, such as artificial lighting or digital screens, can disrupt the body's circadian rhythm and keep you awake. At night when the body naturally produces melatonin to encourage sleep, bright light stimulation of photosensitive retinal ganglion cells can disrupt sleep by as much as 14 minutes, per a 2014 study in the journal Photochemistry and Photobiology. 
• It is important to remember there is no new evidence to suggest that device-derived blue light exposure increases the risk of actual ocular damage. If anything, the evidence emphasizes the importance of wearing UV-A and UV-B blocking sunglasses when outdoors.
• It's long been my professional opinion it is a personal choice - if you like it and it helps you, then keep with it.  
  

Now let's talk about your prescription or need of one and computer use

• Using a computer when your eyes naturally have a hard time focussing - trouble with vision or focusing - can cause excessive fatigue and in some people...headaches. You may need a special prescription for close work even if you are young.
• If your eyes are imbalanced - that is they don't work together well as a team - well as you can imagine, that is really going to cause some eye ache after doing prolonged near work.  Solutions are glasses, eye exercises and prism in glasses.
• Most people work work many hours a day on the computer suffer from dry eyes.  This is going to blur your vision and guess what...cause you trouble at the end of the day. Solutions should be personalised but generally involve eye drops, hot compresses and better lid cleaning care.

Best way to tell if your eyes and your computer are working against each other?  
Get a routine eye exam!  Book one today on www.drvalariejerome.com.

Vision loss due to macular degeneration can be devastating.  It can be very frustrating adapting to your vision loss from macular degeneration, a condition that causes you to lose your central vision.  That means  when you look directly at something - the lady on tv, the print in the newspaper, your tablet, a photo, or your loved one's face - you can't see it.

When you get diagnosed with diseases that cause vision loss like macular degeneration, you may feel lonely and like no one is really there to help.  The ophthalmologist or eye consultant is only there to help with injections and surgical intervention.  The opticians you always visited may not fully be adapted to help you as normal glasses don't make any improvements.  You may feel like you are in limbo.  Not helped with the eye consultant and no being helped with the optometrists at your opticians.

As someone who worked previously in the USA in a low vision clinic assisting patient with vision loss from various diseases and disorders, I understand your frustration.  While I have not experienced vision loss myself, I have seen it's impact on my patients over the years.  I have worked in a specialty clinic where we helped those whose normal glasses were not the answer.  Sometimes it was special magnifiers, better lighting or other devices.  But most importantly, I always recall my grandmother losing her vision due to wet macular degeneration - how her overall health declined after that, and how she did not want to live any longer after she lost her vision.  That happened when I was in university and at a time when there were no injections to help the bleeding from macular degeneration.  That gave me more purpose - to help those like my grandmother though my work as an optometrist.

Using my personal family experience and my experience with low vision patient in the past, at my independent opticians I work with my macular degeneration patients at my practice to get them a bespoke plan. I may only be able to offer advise on directing you to the proper services like Berkshire Vision for support.  I may be able to help with special glasses or recommended a device or light that can help.  But for everyone I offer a good listening ears and allow my patients to chat about how they feel.  I have been known to give a hug to those that needed one.

Can I make your vision better even though you have macular degeneration?  Maybe, maybe not. But I will try my absolute best to find you  the solutions to help you adapt to the vision you DO have left and teach how to use that to the best of our ability. 

Got more questions about your macular degeneration or worried about your loved one with macular degeneration?  
Give us a call on 01635 528844 or book in for an eye exam on www.drvalariejerome.com

Corneal diseases like keratoconus can greatly impact your vision.
 
Normal glasses may not be working.  And standard contacts may still not give you the best vision.  

Don’t worry- there may be a better solution for you. 

Meet specialist contact lens optician, Ms Chris Wensley.  Chris has worked in hospitals and in private practice for many years working to give clearer vision to those who have corneal diseases or misshapen corneas.  

Have you or someone you know been told contacts won’t work because you have
👁 Astigmatism?
👁 Keratoconus?
👁 Scarred corneas?
👁 Corneal disease?
​
Book in or phone us on 01635 528844 to speak to Chris and find out what your options for better vision are. 

The technical term for shortsightedness is myopia.  And if you are shortsighted, you know all about myopia.  The ever changing prescriptions, the need for glasses full time, the cost of those thinner light weight lenses that makes your glasses more expensive than normal.

But you may not know that myopia has many serious consequences on your overall eye health.  It can increase your risk of... 
👓 myopic macular degeneration
👓 retinal detachments
👓 glaucoma
👓 cataracts

Attempts to control or slow down myopia by optometrists  has in the past involved basic solutions.  Often there was very little evidence to show how well these methods actually worked.  In the last few years, research has focused on myopia and how we can better control it in our younger patients and reduce their risk factors of those condition listed above.

At Valarie Jerome Optometrists, we have accreditation to fit not only the MiSight contact lenses for myopia control but have now received accreditation to fit our patients with MiyoSmart spectacle lenses.  

It's not just about vanity or keeping your kids prescription lenses less thick, it is about reducing their risk of sight threatening condition so they will lead a long life with great vision.

And remember to reduce your child's risk of developing myopia make sure to alway encourage your child to
👓 play outdoors as much as possible
👓 limit screen time
👓 take frequent breaks with close work

If you are wondering if either one of these treatments for your child's myopia is right for them, please book in for a complimentary consultation and more information.

Give us a ring on 01635 528844 or email hello@drvalariejerome.com to learn more.

On Global Recycling Day, we are happy  to announce our new  recycling program for contact lens wearers!

In partnership with Terracycle, we are able to accept the following items for recycling
♻️ contact lenses - yes the ACTUAL lens
♻️ contact lens blister packs - what the contact comes in
♻️ contact lens cases - the storage case with the R and L on it
♻️ contact lens solution bottles - emptied of any solution

So no need to bin it the bottles, flush the lenses down the toilet (some people do)  or leave contact lens cases scattered around. 

You don't have to be a patient of ours to participate in the program.

We just ask that all items be emptied of any solution and dry.  

​We also ask that you only drop off during opening hours which may vary and not to leave any items outside the practice.

​Any questions, please give us a ring on 01635 528844.

I am thrilled to have been named as one of the UK’s most 100 inspirational female entrepreneurs by Small Business Britain’s f:Entrepreneur ‘#ialso100’ campaign.
 
There are 100 female entrepreneurs from across the UK, being showcased as part of the campaign’s recognition of the multi-achievements of women that have proved critical to society during the COVID-19 pandemic.
 
Now in its fourth year, f:Entrepreneur was launched in 2017 to highlight amazing female role models to help and inspire all small businesses, through content, stories and events. It particularly aims to showcase trailblazing female entrepreneurs that lead small businesses alongside a roster of other responsibilities, such as volunteering, mentoring and community support, activities.
 
From beekeepers to PPE, tech entrepreneurs to gin makers, this year’s campaign celebrates inspiring and resilient female entrepreneurs that have flourished despite Covid-19, with many still growing or starting new ventures.

I moved to Newbury from the USA over 11 years ago and worked for various local opticians. I worked for many years at Tesco Opticians at the Newbury Retail Park and some still refer to me as the "American Lady from Tescos"  In 2019, I made the bold decision to open my own practice. Having this recognition so early after starting my own practice is an absolute delight. I am truly honoured to be in the company of such inspiring female entrepreneurs.
 
Both f:Entrepreneur and Small Business Britain were founded by Michelle Ovens CBE, who is also the director of Small Business Saturday UK. “Congratulations to all the inspiring women chosen to join this year’s #ialso100,” said Michelle Ovens. “Despite the significant obstacles thrown at them in the last year, female entrepreneurship continues to grow and flourish. We need to continue, and increase, our support for these incredible women and celebrate their amazing strength and success in the face of huge challenges.” “We have seen so many women embracing change, generating and exploring new ideas, rallying around their communities and supporting their peers. This resilience is hugely valuable and will set them up for success as they will be at the very heart of the UK’s recovery.”

To see the full list of women in the list visit ​https://f-entrepreneur.com/ialso-100-2021/