Many people across the nation are very diligent about taking care of their overall health. As such, they go to their doctor for checkups, immunizations, and when they are not feeling their best to get care and assistance. However, a large number of those same people do not take the same care with their eye health. In fact, there are a great many people who do not ever go to the optometrist until they are dealing with a major problem. If you tend to skip your annual visit to the optometrist for an eye exam, you may want to reconsider your habits. Get to know more about why eye exams are so important and schedule your next eye exam as soon as possible.
You May Have Undiagnosed Vision Problems
One of the main reasons to get an eye exam regularly is to check the quality and strength of your vision. It is very possible that from one year to the next you could go from having 20/20 vision with no issues to having vision problems that are causing you headaches, nausea, and other seemingly unrelated symptoms.
Changes in your vision can occur subtly and progress over time. This makes it difficult for you to detect them without an eye exam from an optometrist. The sooner your vision problems are diagnosed and addressed, the better you can care for your vision and overall eye health.
Eye Exams Can Detect Ocular Cancer or Other Eye Disorders
In addition to checking your vision, eye exams function to assess the health of both the exterior and interior parts of your eyes. In this way, an eye exam can be used to detect a wide variety eye problems and disorders that can be serious and require immediate treatment.
For example, an eye exam can be used to detect ocular cancer. Ocular cancer can present in an eye exam as any abnormality in the structure of the eye or a growth underneath the surface of the eye. Other eye disorders that an eye exam can diagnose include cataracts and macular degeneration.
Eye Exams May Detect Non-Eye Related Health Issues
On top of finding issues with your vision and eyes, an eye exam may help you to detect health problems that are not directly related to your eyes. This can include high blood pressure based on the blood vessels in the eyes as well as diabetes.
Recent studies have also found that eye exams could possibly be used to recognize and diagnose neurological conditions and issues including Parkinson's disease and Alzheimer's disease. The research even indicates that a scan of changes in the retina of the eye can detect these disorders before outward symptoms even develop. This can make a major difference in treatments and understanding of these neurological disorder.
Now that you know more about the importance of eye exams in your eye health and overall health, you can schedule your next appointment for an eye exam and make visits to the optometrist (like those at Northway Eye & Contact Lens Center) a part of your regular health routine.
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