What are eye exams for?
Here is why you need an eye exam every single year
Your eyes are “fine”, right? We get it; no one wants to go searching for problems. For many of us, if our vision seems to be okay and we feel our lens prescription is still holding, then we can easily convince ourselves that we can skip the annual eye exam.
However, we’d like to dispel that way of thinking. There are a few reasons why it’s important to have your eyes checked every year.
Do it for the Children!
Myopia, otherwise known as “nearsightedness” is an incredibly common vision problem that can have lasting effects on your child’s education. It can be as simple as not being able to see the chalkboard!
However, unchecked myopia can cause significant eye strain, which over decades causes more serious issues like glaucoma, cataracts, or retinal detachment. To put it simply, if you live your life with undiagnosed Myopia, then you’re making it many times harder to see the simple things you see every single day. The harder your eyes continue to work, the higher rate of vision failure down the road.
Vision Screenings Aren’t Comprehensive
Indeed, children (and adults, think of the vision test needed for a driver’s license) can undergo occasional vision screenings that check the quality of their vision. While it might be tempting to consider this “good enough” when it comes to understanding your eye health, it actually does very little investigative work.
For one thing, a vision screening can be easily passed by someone who tries hard to circumvent it. Letters can be discerned and guessed even when vision is bad, meaning a vision test doesn’t even always accurately test vision! Beyond that, a screening does absolutely nothing to detect actual eye diseases or complications. Only an eye exam will ensure your vision and eyes are healthy.
Your Eyes Are the Window to Your Soul
Okay, maybe that sounds a little bit dramatic but there is some truth to it. When we check your vision, we’re not just gaining insight into the health of your eyes, we can also see the symptoms of other life-threatening conditions that affect the rest of your body.
The blood vessels in your eyes can tell us if you’re developing problems like diabetes and hypertension, for instance. Diabetics can even develop something we call “diabetic eye”, which is a condition caused by diabetes that causes blindness!
Glaucoma; the Unseen Threat to Your Vision
When we think of glaucoma it’s easy to picture an octogenarian with those oversized sunglasses. While it’s true that glaucoma is a condition that worsens with age, it’s also a condition that can occur in anyone and at a much younger age than you’d think.
While you might be developing glaucoma, you won’t know it at first. Glaucoma, as a condition, can take some time to develop physical symptoms. It simply sits, waiting for the day to show itself. By then, you’re already in an advanced stage of the illness. While glaucoma doesn’t show its hand very easily, we can quickly spot its development in an eye exam. When your eyes are examined annually, then you can rest easy knowing that glaucoma isn’t waiting in ambush.
Annual Eye Exams Are a Great Insurance & An Even Better Assurance
Eye exams are an investment in your lifetime eye health. They’re also an assurance that everything’s working the way it should. It’s easy to assume that, if your vision seems fine, then there is probably nothing wrong. We’re here to say that that isn’t exactly true, and we’re waiting for your call to schedule an exam!