Comprehensive Eye Exams: 11 Reasons Why They’re So Important
Do you have perfect vision? Do your children go about their every-day life without a single complaint about their eyesight? If so, that’s wonderful news, but it’s not a reason to keep you and your family from having comprehensive eye exams done.
Whether your eyes give you trouble or not, it’s ideal to have them checked out at least once a year. This is because even if everything is seemingly perfect, there could be some hidden issues. For your children, they might even be suffering from eye-related issues but don’t know how to explain it to you or how to address it.
It’s always better to be safe than be sorry, especially when it comes to your health. Did you know that the health of your eyes is connected with your body’s overall health? Keep your eyes and your body healthy by understanding these critical reasons to have an eye exam done.
1. Damage Caused by the Sun
Each day that you spend time outside, you expose your eyes to the sun. And although we normally associate the sun with skin conditions and the need to protect our skin, we need to protect our eyes just as much. It’s important to wear sunglasses each time you go outdoors.
Having an eye exam done will screen for potential risk of sun damage to your eyes. Damages include cataracts and macular degeneration.
2. Damage Caused by Digital Devices
As technology advances each year, more and more digital devices are finding their ways into our homes and into our hands. Look around you, you’re surrounded by devices with a screen including computers, smartphones, tablets, game consoles, e-readers, and televisions. But the overuse of these digital devices has changed the way that we blink our eyes.
When we spend so much time staring at our screens, we begin to blink much slower than normal. Unfortunately, this is bad for our eyes because blinking is essential for their health. When we blink, our eyes create a lubricant, which protects the tear film on our eyes.
Not blinking how we should sentence us to dry eye. Having an annual eye exam done will help detect and solve these issues.
3. Vision Correction
If you’re someone who knows that you suffer from visions problems such as astigmatisms, nearsightedness, or farsightedness, then regular eye exams are vital for your eyes health. During your eye exam, your eye doctor will ensure that you’re seeing as well as possible and that your prescription is up to date for your glasses. If you’re someone who wears contacts, then you should be aware of certain risks that come along with them.
Your eye doctor will ensure that your eyes are healthy and doing well with the contacts.
4. Issues With Allergies
Allergies are a plague that fortunately doesn’t affect everyone. However, for those that it does affect, you know just how miserable allergy flare-ups can be. This is especially true for your eyes.
Allergies cause burning, itching, and swelling of the eyes. Not having an eye exam done might lead you to damage your eyes even more by rubbing or scratching them. Have an eye exam done and your eye doctor will prescribe you medication and give you the best advice on how to manage allergy symptoms.
5. Possibility of Eye Diseases
According to the National Eye Institue, some popular eyes diseases are macular degeneration, glaucoma, cataracts, and diabetic retinopathy. Millions of Americans have been diagnosed with these eye diseases. And unfortunately, some of these diseases don’t give many early-warning signs.
In some instances, when people begin to notice issues with their eyes or their vision, the disease is normally in the later stages. However, if you receive annual eye exams, you have a much better chance of stopping the progress of the disease. Eye doctors will be able to detect signs of these diseases and provide you with proper treatment plans.
6. Addressing Health Concerns
Aside from eye diseases, there are many other health concerns linked to your eye health. Your eye doctor will also be able to determine signs of other serious health issues such as high blood pressure, high cholesterol, cancers, and diabetes. These are all serious health concerns that you may not be able to notice yourself.
That’s why it’s so vital to have your eye exams done. You never know when your eyes might be giving off warning signs. Let your eye doctor catch these issues in the early stages.
7. Proactive Approach For Diabetes
Diabetic retinopathy is a common result of diabetes. This happens when your high blood sugar levels cause damage to the blood vessels within the retina. Scaring here can cause permanent vision loss. This reason for the loss of vision and blindness is one of the most preventable causes.
With routine eye exams, your eye doctor will detect signs of diabetic retinopathy in its early stages, which ultimately prevents your vision loss. Failure to have routine eye exams done when battling diabetes can lead to blindness and other diseases as well. That’s why it’s even more so important to have eye exams done if you have diabetes.
8. Eyes That Are Aging
Although eye issues can affect any person at any age, people over the age of 40 are at higher risks. This is because eyesight starts to decline at this age. Presbyopia is one common issue that aging eyes face, making it hard to read in dim light or to drive at night.
Things might also become much cloudier for aging eyes, even for those using glasses. Colors become less bright and by the age of 70, your vision reduces by 20%. As you get older, eye exams become more important.
As you become more at risk for eye problems, it’s best to see your eye doctor routinely to have eye exams done and to stay on top of any arising issues.
9. A Link to Brain Health
Cognitive function and dyslexia are two brain functions linked to eye health. One study even shows that seniors suffering from visual impairments were 2.8 times more likely to also suffer from dementia or cognitive dysfunction. Because of this, seniors should visit their eye doctor for eye exams more regularly than when they were younger.
Because eye doctors can locate signs and help form treatment plans, both your eye health and your brain health depend on it.
10. Success in School
As mentioned before, just because your children don’t mention it to you that they’re suffering from vision problems, doesn’t mean that they aren’t. And failure to address said problems might lead to a struggle at school. Children are expected to use their eyes and good vision to learn many things both inside and outside of the classroom.
To ensure that your children succeed in the classroom, sports, and other extracurricular activities, have routine eye exams done for them. Their eye doctor will ensure that their vision is working as it should. If it’s not, they’ll work with you and your child to come up with a solution.
11. Vision Screenings Aren’t Eye Exams
Don’t be fooled by vision screenings done at schools or motor vehicle departments. Just because you or your children pass the vision screenings here, doesn’t mean yours or their eyes are in perfect health. Visions screenings are put in place to pick out individuals who have more serious and very obvious vision problems.
These screenings might be able to detect trouble seeing a chalkboard or trouble seeing a road sign. Only your eye doctor can ensure that your eyes are working as best as they should and that there are no signs of cancer, eye diseases, or other eye-related problems.
Don’t Skip Your Eye Exams!
Whether you’re a healthy young adult or an aging senior, you need to have regular eye exams conducted. Doing so is the best way to ensure that you are healthy and stay healthy or that you keep those eye issues that you do have under control.
For those suffering from eye-related problems, click here for treatment options!