Most of the time, when a patient comes in for an eye examination, they come in expecting to just get their glasses or contact lens prescriptions updated. After asking them when the last time was that they checked the health of their eyes by dilation or by retinal imaging, most look at me, confused without an answer. Today, I wanted to shed some light on what checking your eye health actually means and why it’s important. Also, linking some gorgeous workwear pieces for my ladies who love to dress up in the office.
RETINA – Tissues in the back layers of your eyes
Normal Retina
Right Eye
Left Eye
Why Check The Health of Your Eyes?
There is common misconception – most people think that just because they see clearly, the health of their eyes is automatically healthy and that they don’t need an eye exam.
This is definitely NOT TRUE.
Vision and health are not the same. Just because you see clearly, doesn’t mean that your eyes are automatically healthy. When they say “eyes are the windows to the soul,” they weren’t lying.
There have been so many instances, unfortunately, where I’ve been able to catch someone completely “healthy” having some type of systemic condition that they had no idea about. Just from looking at the health of the eyes, Optometrists and Ophthalmologists can see signs of:
– Diabetes
– High Blood Pressure
– High Cholesterol
– Strokes
– Heart Conditions
– Multiple Sclerosis (MS)
– Autoimmune Diseases
– Brain Tumors
just to name a few…
THAT, is why you should be getting your yearly eye exam with either dilation or imaging, even if you are not seeing blurry and even if you are “healthy.”
The key factor here is prevention. The earlier something is caught, the better the chance of getting rid of it!
This is an retinal image of a 38 year old patient I saw just this week. She had absolutely no symptoms. After checking her Optomap images, her right eye looked normal, however, her left eye had a new retinal hole that wasn’t there the previous year.
Most of the time, if you’re nearsighted, then the tissues in the retina are naturally a lot thinner along the edges, putting you more at risk of getting a retinal hole, such as this patient. If your prescription starts with a (-), then that’s you.
So she has a retinal hole..what’s the big deal? If retinal holes arent caught early, they can randomly cause the back of the eye to detach, which is an emergency & requires surgery! Since we caught it early, this patient will get a few zaps of laser around the hole, that way it never has the chance to become a detachment. HENCE…PREVENTION!
ways to check the health of your eyes
DILATION:
Your doctor will put various medication drops in your eyes and have you wait about 20-30 minutes for your pupils to fully dilate. Then they’ll take you back into the exam room to finish up by using certain lenses and bright light to examine everything past the lens inside of the eye. Lastly, they’ll go over the results of your eye health and any necessary follow ups.
Side Effects:
- Blurry Up Close Only For 5-6 Hours
- Light Sensitive & Glare For The Rest Of The Day – your eye doctor will have you wear your dark sunglasses or give you disposable ones at the end of the eye exam
- A Large Pupil – Don’t get scared if you look in the mirror and your eyes look a bit crazy!
- Don’t Recommend Driving After
Rarely:
- angle-closure glaucoma
- tachycardia – increased heart rate while at rest
- dizziness
RETINAL IMAGING (OPTOMAP):
This is when a quick photo is taken of the inside of the eye using a large machine that digitally scans the eye with a laser. Think of it as a selfie of your eye. Technology has improved so much within the last few years – this is, by far, my favorite way to check my patients eye health because it is extremely accurate and I love that my patients get to see what the health of their eyes actually looks like. I find that patients take their eye health way more seriously when they see how interconnected the eye is to the rest of the body.
Side Effects:
None
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If it’s one thing you take away from reading this, it’s to answer “YES“ the next time your eye doctor asks you if you want to dilate your eyes or do imaging.
Let me know if this was helpful in the comments below.
