No one wants to live with impaired vision or blindness. Yet far too many people neglect basic preventative eye care until a vision problem arises.
Here at Campus Eye Group our goal is to make sure you enjoy superior vision for many years to come. Scheduling your eye exam is the first step to creating your personalized preventative vision care plan.
Campus Eye Group is proud to provide you with cutting-edge eye care by highly educated, skilled, and experienced board-certified ophthalmologists.
What to Expect During your Exam
We strive to provide the most comfortable, calm and – dare we say – enjoyable experience during your preventative eye exam.
We begin by learning everything we can about your prior medical history, including your ocular health history and any current vision issues you may be experiencing.
We use only the latest technology to perform your preventative vision tests. We start by evaluating your quality of vision against the 20/20 ideal, looking for presence or degree of nearsightedness (myopia), farsightedness (hyperopia), loss of focus (presbyopia), and astigmatism.
Next, we test for binocular vision (ensuring both eyes are functioning evenly and equally as they should be) and color vision. We also do a full examination of your eye and eyelids, including a muscle balance test for alignment. A microscope exam searches for early development of eye concerns such as dry eye, cataracts, and corneal disease. A pressure check tests your eyes for glaucoma. We do a vitreous exam to detect spots or floaters and evaluate your eyes for retinal disease such as macular degeneration.
Often vision begins to worsen very slightly over time, which is why the recommended frequency of preventative eye exams escalates as you grow older.
We don’t want to wait until then to detect subtle changes in your vision, therefore, we test you for acuity in each of the following ways:
Visual Clarity Close-Up
How well does your vision perform when you are using your eyes in close quarters? Examples might include computer or tablet work, reading or watching television, looking at your phone, or writing a note.
Ocular Teamwork
Do your two eyes each pull their weight? Normal vision is binocular. When issues arise with depth perception or sensing distance, this can mean binocular vision is malfunctioning. If your two eyes are not working well together, this can lead to Binocular Vision Dysfunction (BVD), a condition that creates chronic eye strain and fatigue.
Ocular Focus
Do you focus equally well on objects up close and far away? Are there any areas where distance impedes your eyes’ ability to focus? We look for areas where you may be experiencing increased eye strain or fatigue or diminished ocular performance.
Ocular Movement
A normal eye will be able to move quite rapidly to take in near and far images precisely calculating distance and speed while juggling immense amounts of visual information in real time with ease.
Problems with hand-to-eye coordination, reaction time to visual stimulus, and accurate tracking (eye following) ability can indicate problems with ocular movement.
Issues with Refraction
If you have ever watched a beam of light pass through a prism, what you were observing is called “refraction.” When light waves enter your eye, they bend, or refract. Your whole eye works together to bend incoming light.
Your naturally curved lens at the front of the eye helps bend the light, which then directs it towards the back of your eye where your retina can capture the image. From there, your retina sends it to the brain for decoding.
If your vision is blurry or distorted, this may point to a problem with your lenses, your retina, or some other part of the eye itself.
Problems with vision are commonly called “refractive errors.” The four most common refractive errors include myopia (nearsightedness), hyperopia (farsightedness), presbyopia (loss of focus), and astigmatism.
Preventative Eye Care Frequency Guidelines
- If you are diabetic, you should have an annual eye exam.
- If you are aged 18 to 65, plan to have an exam every 24 months.
- If you are aged 65 or older, plan to have an exam every 12 months.
How to Prepare for Your Preventative Eye Exam
The typical preventative eye exam takes between 30 and 60 minutes. If you are currently wearing glasses or contact lenses, be sure to bring them with you to your exam. If you plan to wear contacts that day, bring your contacts case and your glasses since you will need to remove your contacts during the exam.
If at all possible, please complete any required forms prior to your appointment date and time. Be sure to write down any known allergies or health issues. Bring your health (eye) insurance information with you, if applicable. Be prepared to provide a complete personal medical history as well as additional medical information pertaining to family history of eye disease. If you have had prior eye procedures, be sure to bring dates of those procedures and any records with you.
Remove eye makeup prior to your exam. Your preventative eye exam will include dilation with the option for reversal drops. However, some patients can take longer to return to normal vision even with the reversal drops. Please plan accordingly if you will need someone to drive you home from your appointment.
Your preventative eye exam will be conducted by one of our experienced board-certified ophthalmologists.
Is there any Risk?
Preventative eye exams are intentionally designed to detect risk of developing vision issues or diseases. The technology and testing used to perform your eye exam is perfectly safe.
You may experience temporary light sensitivity during and after dilation. Dark sunglasses can help ease any temporary discomfort this causes.
Why Schedule a Preventative Eye Exam?
Preventative eye exams are vital to detect potential vision problems or diseases while they are still in the earliest stages and readily treatable. Contact our experts to set up an appointment.
