Why is eye exam important for everyone?

Sight is the most important sense of a human being to maintain the quality of life. A regular eye exam helps to preserve vision and to prevent blindness.

To update glasses or contact lenses

Your glasses or contact lenses prescription should be updated once every 2 years for clear vision in daily life. Your vision may be clear for the first year wearing your correction but later you may feel the vision is not as clear as it is before. It is because your degree is progressing. Updating prescriptions annually is important to slow down the progression of nearsightedness. Regular eye exam detects the progression of near-sightedness, which is common in school children and has a great influence on academic performance. The early control of near-sightedness is important to prevent further increase of the degree and the complications like the development of glaucoma.

Detection of glaucoma

Glaucoma is the progressive damage of optic nerves in the eyes, in which the sight is eaten up silently from the periphery until total blindness. A regular eye exam allows early detection and management of glaucoma to slow down the disease progression before the vision gets worse.

Contact lens eye exam

Contact lens wearers require an annual eye exam to check the effect of contact lens wear and fitting on corneal health. The presence of symptoms and corneal health problems related to contact lenses should be managed on time to prevent permanent damage and preserve vision. Find out more here.

Prevention of eye conditions related to ageing

Regular eye exam monitors the ageing of the eyes and the accompanying condition like cataracts which can be prevented. You can discuss with the eye care professional regarding sunglasses selection to prevent cataracts.

Detection of other health problems

An eye exam can be used to detect other health problems from the clinical signs in the eyes. Other diseases that can be detected are brain tumour (papilledema), multiple sclerosis (optic neuritis), high blood pressure, diabetes and high cholesterol. Early detection of health problems allows the prevention of disease progression and prevention of blindness.

In conclusion, your eyes may feel good and look good from the appearance but you cannot detect what is happening within the eyes. Therefore, you are encouraged to have an eye examination by the eye care professional once every two years regardless of the symptoms.

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