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Routine Eye Exams
Routine eye exams are the best defense against all eye conditions. By not having frequent eye exams, you’re risking your eyesight.
By maintaining a consistent eye exam schedule, your eye doctor can monitor the health of your eyes. If a condition develops, they can track its progress and intervene with treatment at the appropriate time. Timely treatment could save your eyesight.
How Often Do You Need a Routine Eye Exam?
It’s essential to get regular eye exams, even if you don’t have any vision issues. For children and senior adults, eye exams should be more frequent.
If you’re middle-aged, you can get by with exams every few years if you don’t have any issues with your vision.
Children and Teens
Children should have an eye exam before they start kindergarten or first grade. If their eyes are healthy and vision problems don’t run in your family, an exam every one to two years is enough.
Middle-Aged Adults
Adults ages twenty to forty with healthy vision need a routine eye exam every five years. If you wear glasses or contacts or have other medical conditions, you’ll need to have exams more often. Your doctor can advise precisely how often it is necessary.
Senior Adults
Senior adults should have their eyes checked every one to two years. This frequency is because eyesight tends to worsen with age.
Also, other health conditions that contribute to eye issues worsen as you get older. Your eye doctor will recommend an acceptable schedule based on your overall and eye health.
How Does an Eye Exam Work?
Routine eye exams are painless and straightforward. Your ophthalmologist will ask you questions such as:
- Are you having any problems with your eyes?
- Have you had eye problems before?
- Does your family have a history of eye problems or any medical conditions?
- Do you have any health problems?
- What medications do you take?
- Do you have allergies?
- Do you wear glasses or contacts, and do they help?
The answers to these questions will help them determine how often you need an eye exam. This information will also help determine what they need to check your eyes for.
Your doctor will examine things like visual acuity, eye pressure, and eye health during the exam. To complete a visual acuity test, you’ll read different size letters and relay what you see to your eye doctor.
This will help them determine if you need corrective lenses. You may also look through an instrument called a phoropter to determine the prescription you need.
Next, they will test your eye pressure. Your eye doctor measures eye pressure by pressing a pressure-sensitive tip to your eyeball.
Last, your eye doctor will check your general eye health. To determine eye health, they will examine your pupils, side vision, eye movement, and the front part of your eye. They can test all this by shining lights in your eye and watching the reaction.
Once the exam is complete, your ophthalmologist will explain the results. Together, the two of you will determine the best plan for your eyesight moving forward.
Eye exams take between thirty and ninety minutes. If your eye doctor sees any problems, they may do extra testing. Tests like optical coherence tomography (OCT) or fluorescein angiography (FA) can help diagnose severe eye conditions.
How Should You Prepare For Your Eye Exam?
Before your eye exam, have relevant information handy. Know your family’s history of eye disease and bring records from other doctors regarding other medical conditions.
If you wear glasses or contacts, wear or bring them to your exam. Likely, your eyes will get dilated. If they do, you’ll need somebody else to drive you home.
Is it time for you to have your eyes examined? Schedule an appointment at Georgia Eye Partners in Atlanta, GA, to make sure they are healthy!
