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The Work We Do: Dr. Miki Lyn Zilnicki, Twin Forks Optometry

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I’m Dr. Miki Lyn Zilnicki. I am part owner of Twin Forks Optometry located here in Riverhead.

My partner Jessica Licausi and I opened the office in 2015. We met at SUNY Optometry.

We do regular eye exams and provide comprehensive eye care. We specialize in vision therapy. It’s like physical therapy for your eyes and the next closest office is all the way in Smithtown and after that, Garden City. So we’re the center out here to treat East End patients.

The first step is looking at how clearly we see. That’s where most eye exams stop. We just say ‘Can you see 20/20? OK, good.’

We look at the next steps in vision: how we gather visual information; how our eyes are working together; how they’re focusing and tracking on a page and then how they process all of that vision.

Our vision therapy evaluations are very different than your regular eye exam. Usually you’re in and out in 15 or 20 minutes.

My evaluations actually take between an hour and two hours because we’re really delving into the visual system.

It gives us good insight into how someone is functioning visually, academically, in sports as well as in their professional life.

All the sessions are individualized.

We’re seeing patients on a one-to-one basis and really creating unique programs for them.

That’s really a typical day and then there’s the administrative end where we’re writing reports and things like that.

I graduated from Riverhead in 2006, and I was so proud to be able to provide this service to my hometown, to the place that I love the most.

I have patients that couldn’t do something visually, couldn’t read, couldn’t remember what they’ve read, were getting headaches, couldn’t function and after a few short weeks of therapy they’re able to do all of those things.

They come in excited that they read a book, they got an A on a test. And it’s so rewarding that you know that you have forever changed someone’s life in a positive way.

That’s really the most special part of my job is that I’m affecting people positively.

“The Work We Do” is a Riverhead News Review multimedia project profiling workers around Riverhead.