If you're concerned about your eye health or have noticed changes in your vision, it's important to get a comprehensive eye exam. During an eye exam, your healthcare provider looks closely at your eyes and does several tests to evaluate your vision and detect any eye diseases. These tests can also provide clues to other health conditions, such as diabetes, high blood pressure, and brain tumors. A color blindness test involves looking at a series of images made in two colors.
With normal color vision, the image of different colors within the larger color image is clearly visible. However, if you have a color vision deficiency, the colors will not be distinguished from each other. The eye movement test measures the range of motion of the eyes. You'll be asked to follow an image, a light, or even the doctor's finger in multiple directions with your eyes while keeping your head still.
This gives the optometrist clues about how the muscles around the eyes work. Often, you'll need to dilate your eyes to be examined with a slit lamp, which will open the pupil. This can cause the eyes to become sensitive to light for several hours afterwards, but it has no lasting effects. The slit-lamp exam can help diagnose many eye diseases and conditions, as well as injuries or any problems with the blood vessels in the eye.
Your doctor will also want to know if you see double vision when your eyes move from one side to the other. Digital images of the eye can be taken to monitor your health. Glaucoma is a group of conditions that affect the optic nerve and is often referred to as “the silent thief of sight” because it often has no symptoms until the damage has already occurred. That's why glaucoma tests are so necessary that they can reveal the condition of your eyes, even if nothing seems to be wrong.
If your eyes hurt when looking at digital screens, such as your phone or computer, your eye doctor may recommend blue light glasses. By examining the eyes in this way, the eye doctor usually detects conditions such as diabetes, high blood pressure, arterial plaque, multiple sclerosis, brain tumors, strokes, leukemia, and many other conditions. It's important to get regular eye exams even if you don't have any vision problems. Once you turn 65, you should be screened approximately every year for cataracts, glaucoma, or other age-related eye problems.
People with a higher risk of eye diseases or vision problems may need to have their eyes examined more often. If you are planning to have an eye exam or if you have noticed any changes in your vision, contact Saland Vision at 214-691-8000 or visit their website for more information. Don't wait until it's too late - regular eye exams are essential for preventing and treating eye conditions that could cause vision loss.
