We’ll all go to the doctor if we don’t feel as though something’s quite right, just like we’ll attend regular appointments with our dentists. But what about our eye health?
Having regular check-ups with your optician is just as important as visiting your dentist or doctor. Making regular visits at all stages of life can help to keep your eyes healthy and your vision strong. A lot of people fail to notice that their vision is deteriorating and will put off going to see a vision expert. However, when they receive glasses / contact lenses or have laser eye surgery, they start to see the world in full focus, whether it’s small print or road signs in the distance.
Your Optician Knows Best
Unfortunately, many eye conditions and diseases don’t provide any symptoms at the start, which is why they can go unnoticed for quite some time. Having a comprehensive eye examination is vital in identifying these problems early on and will lead to much more effective treatment that could ward off vision loss.
An eye examination will test to see how well your eyes move, your eye alignment, depth perception and visual acuity. Dilated eye exams will also look at the inside of your eyes to check for the development of other health problems while some optician tests will also identify conditions such as diabetes or high blood pressure. Modern laser eye surgery companies, like the Laser Eye Surgery Hub, are now able to treat a very wide range of eye conditions that were once only treated with glasses or lenses, so now there are more treatment options than any time in history.
Finding Eye Disease Early
There are a number of common eye diseases that can be caught early through visual examinations, helping to prevent blindness. These include cataracts (one of the leading causes of blindness), age-related muscular degeneration (where the light-sensitive tissue in your eye is broken down), glaucoma and diabetic retinopathy (where blood vessels are damaged at the back of the eye).
In the US, there are 61 million adults who have been identified as being at a high risk of vision loss – only half of these have seen an optician in the last year.
Check-ups From an Early Age
It’s incorrectly believed that eye tests are only needed as we get older but they’re just as important, if not more so, in young children. Having screenings at an early age helps to identify any potential problems, including amblyopia (the leading cause of vision loss in children, which affects the communication between the eyes and the brain). Around 2 to 3 per cent of children suffer from this and early diagnosis can lead to effective treatment that will prevent vision loss. It’s recommended that children have eye tests between aged between 3 and 5 years.
Frequent Eye Examinations
If you are suffering from diabetes it is recommended to have a dilated eye examination at least once a year. Anyone who has a family history of glaucoma, anyone aged over 60, and African Americans who are aged 40 and over, should also have eye exams every other year.
If you’re concerned about your vision or you’ve noticed something different, such as decreased vision, double vision or eye pain, you should book an appointment with your optician as soon as possible.
Louise Thomas works at an opticians. She enjoys meeting new people each day and likes to share her knowledge on keeping eyes healthy. She does this through her articles which appear on a selection of health blogs.