Did you know there are over 400 systemic diseases that can be seen in our eyes? High blood pressure, diabetes, cholesterol and some tumors can be diagnosed by your optometrist. Simple sparkles in vision could be signs of migraines or even a stroke. Do not take your eye exams lightly. Annual eye exams are needed to check the health of your eyes. Children’s eyes are just as important as adult’s eyes. The first recommended eye exam for children is six months of age according to the Optometric Association.
Children do not have the experience to know if they are not seeing clearly. We may think our child just has a learning difficulty because they are mixing up letters or pictures. They may only have a vision difficulty that could be corrected easily. The sooner we catch vision problems, the sooner a child can begin learning correctly.
Optometrists who do see children are able to diagnose mild vision problems, eye turns and disease. A child rubbing their eyes may mean that they need glasses. Not every problem that children have with their eyes requires the use of glasses. Let your optometrist discuss with you all their options.
Around age 40, most people start having difficulty with their up-close (reading) vision. This is quite normal. Sometimes glasses or contact lenses will help. Some people can even have LASIK to help with this problem. Your optometrist can discuss your options with you. We even fit many patients with bifocal contact lenses for more natural vision without the use of glasses.
“I do not need an eye exam, I see well.” Just because you are seeing well, does not mean your eye health is perfect. You may have systemic health issues that could be diagnosed by your optometrist. Some eye diseases are not painful. In fact, an eye disease like Glaucoma could go undetected by you until you start losing some vision. By this point half of all of the millions of nerves leading to your eye are already dead. This is a difficult stage to slow the process for further vision loss. If the disease process is caught early, usually it can be treated with eye drops and monitored yearly without the vision loss.
Dilating our eyes is not scary or painful. It simply allows our optometrist to look inside our eyes better. Before dilation, your Optometrist can only view about 10 percent inside your eyes. After dilation they can view 90 to 100 percent inside our eyes. It is like opening the door to look inside a room, rather than looking through a peephole. Many eye or body diseases may be missed with a routine eye exam including a dilation.
For more information, please call 20/20 Optometric Eye Care at 661-287-3939.