Ridge is a hamlet and census-designated place located in Suffolk County, Long Island. The community has large tracts of woods which include state conservation areas that interlace with neighborhoods old and new. The Longwood Estate on Smith Road was built in 1790 and housed a School in the 19th century which is considered an important landmark in the area and also used for Fairs and other public events. There are lots of outdoor activities in Ridge which includes hiking, horseback riding, fishing, and hunting or golfing at public courses.
William Tangier Smith, an owner of homestead in Setauket and a mayor of Tangier in Africa allowed buying a large tract of land on the South Shore of Long Island. The area was called St. George Manor that stretches from the Carmans River (then called the Connecticut River) in the west to the edge of Southampton Town in the east with a northern border around present day New York State Route 25 as much as 81,000 acres of land. He made his manor seat on the south shore in Mastic and the northern part, now the south side of Ridge which was called "The Swamp" or "Longswamp." Smith inhabited the house and changed the name to Longwood in 1817. The northern Ridge was settled by widower Samuel Randall and his only son Stephen Randall which they farmed a 4,000 acre on a plot of ground that Samuel had always referred to as "the Ridge" based on the geographical terrain. The former and merged names include Ridgeville and then later called Ridge was the name selected by its residents for postal delivery and remains the name of the hamlet in the present day.
North Shore Eye Care serves the residents of Ridge with a variety of concerns including Macula Degeneration. The signs of macula degeneration can be detected many years before visual loss occurs. Usually the first sign that future trouble may occur is when small yellow-white spots are noted in the central retina of the eye known as the macula. These spots known as drusen represent extracellular waste products that are no longer efficiently removed from the retina. They are thought to be a result of oxidative stress which makes sense since the rate of oxygen uptake by the retina is higher than anywhere else in the body. Antioxidants have been shown to decrease the chance of vision loss with this disease. Examples are the vitamins A, C, and E. Additionally zinc and the carotenoids lutein and zeaxanthin found in green leafy vegetables have also been shown to decrease vision loss from macula degeneration. More recent evidence exists that still more agents such as the omega 3 fatty acids found in fish oil, coenzyme Q 10, melatonin, and other chemicals may be useful in combating macula degeneration.
While age is the major risk factor other factors such as cigarette smoking, excessive unprotected exposure to sunlight, and certain medications such as amiodarone, phenothiazines, and even St. John's wort can increase the risk of macula degeneration. For more information and to gain early detection for this vision threatening disease come to the eye experts at North Shore Eye Care, the leading experts in all diseases of the eye.
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