How I Treat an Ocular Melanoma

Ocular Melanoma in the eyes is a very rare but serious form of cancer that I want to discuss today. It develops in the cells that produce pigment. Today I will cover how it forms, what to look out for, and what steps you can take to treat it. Enjoy the show. If you want more, sign up for my newsletter at: www.drsamberne.com. Wed, 7/20 11:06PM • 13:48 SUMMARY KEYWORDS eye, melanoma, called, doctor, diagnosed, develop, dilated, test, important, retina, ocular melanoma, pigment, travel, tumor, condition, talk, today, eyelid, antioxidant, vision 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 [email protected]. Now to the latest EyeClarity episode. Hey, everybody, it's Dr. Sam. And I want to welcome you to another EyeClarity podcast. So it's great to have you in today. Before I start, I want to make a few announcements. So first of all, I'm going I'm going to be teaching a three day online retreat, we call it the vision sanctuary retreat. And this will occur October 7th-9th 2022. And we're getting ready to put the announcement up on my web store. So if you want to register for that, the last time I did it, it was so successful, and people made some really great shifts in their vision and their health. So go to my website, drsamberne.com. And click on classes and you will see the vision sanctuary retreat. Again, we're putting it up right now. So it should be available for registration by the end of July. So today's show, I want to take a question on a condition called ocular melanoma. I received this question from a listener on Instagram. Her father has been diagnosed with this condition and she wants to know what I recommend. So briefly, an ocular melanoma is a type of cancer. And I want to just say at the beginning, this is a very serious cancer. And that develops in the cells that produce pigment. Now pigment gives us the color of our skin, our hair, even our eye color. And you can develop melanomas anywhere in your body, but you can also develop melanomas inside your eye. And although they are pretty rare, they are a very serious condition. Now usually, ocular melanomas begin in the middle of the I called the UV. And it can then travel either to the innermost layer, the retina, or it can travel to the outer layer of the eye, called the sclera. That's the white part of the eye. It's made of connective tissue. Rarely will you see an eye melanoma that occurs on the inside part of the eyelid which we call the conjunctiva. Now, because most II melanomas form in the part of the eye that you can't see, if you look into a mirror, it is very difficult to self diagnose because there are not any signs or symptoms at least early on. And so that's why it's important to get a regular eye exam. Because as an exam, the doctor can recognize if there are pigment cells that are abnormal. And we'll talk a little more about that. So what causes melanomas? Well, a couple of things that we need to note that if you're a fair skinned person, if you develop moles on your skin, if you're light sensitive, you probably have a little higher risk of developing melanomas in the eye and I want to stress this is a very rare condition. So it's not anything that you have to necessarily worry about. But certainly, when there's a shift in the skin pigmentation, especially in the eyelids, or inside the eye, it's important to identify is it actually a melanoma? Or is it just what we call a Naevus? You know, it's a benign discoloration. And again, usually,