People tend to ignore the fact that routine eye exams are essential for their good well being. Although there are a good number of people who gets their whole body checked up on a regular basis, many are reluctant to have an eye exam. This ends up to loss of vision. Vision problems are being neglected which develop into more serious health conditions. People really do not get the fact that lot of these problems could be avoided if only they had regular eye examination.
Examination of eyes should be done on a regular basis. As there are possibilities of many eye conditions such as macular degeneration, diabetic retinopathy and glaucoma can be the reason of vision loss. As there are no definitive treatments for these diseases so regular check up is mandatory to avoid losing vision.
Generally eye exams are done by an Ophthalmologist. A standard eye exam can take as much as an hour to hour and a half. The physician might want to know your families or yours’ medical history, will evaluate both near and distant vision and other eye related diseases. The tests may also consist of checking the eyes’ ability working together. Eye pressure test and also tests to check for glaucoma. Tests regarding contact lens may require additional costs as well as tests.
A regular eye exam may have several components. One of them may be is designed largely in detecting weak eye sight. This includes the examination of both near sighted and far sighted problem. These tests are carried out by an ophthalmologist or by an optometrist. An ophthalmologist has the license to treat a patient for any kind of eye disease where else an optometrist can only prescribe for lenses, corrective glasses etc. So it is obvious that an eye exam by an optometrist is definitely cheaper. Retail stores offer you such eye testing where you could just walk in without any appointments and have you eyes examined. They also offer you to select glasses and lenses at the same store.
Different people should receive complete eye exam at different intervals. Children’s eyes should be examined at six months of age, three years of age, and six or seven years of age and every two years during school days, since high vision problem rates are reported among both preschool and school-aged children. For children with risk factors of vision problems such as prematurity, developmental delays, turned eyes, family history of eye diseases and history of eye injury, more frequent eye examinations are necessary.
Adults at different ages need eye examinations in different frequencies. People less than 40 years old, one exam every two or three years is enough for those with normal vision, while an annual exam is required for those wearing eyeglasses or contacts. People with diabetes, high blood pressure and other disorders may also require more frequent eye exams. People above 40 need eye exams every one to two years and people over 60 need annual exams.
Sometimes it may be a bit expensive, which is in fact the most common reason for people opting not to visit an ophthalmologist or even an optometrist and hence ignoring the health of