When was the last time you had your eyes checked? When we age our eyesight can be affected. Think of this like a physical for your eye. During the course of our lifetimes, there are different times that we should get our eyes checked.
For babies up to 24 months old, their very first eye exams should happen between 6 & 9 months old.
Preschool kids from 2 – 5 years old should have their eye examined at least once in this time period.
When the kids have reached 6 -19 once a year is the best time for their eye checks.
Now they are coming into their adulthood, from ages 20 -39 getting the eyes checked every 2 – 3 years is required.
When getting your eyes tested make sure you are getting an eye exam, and not a sight test.
A sight test does not examine your eye. It does not find diseases which could be associated with the eye.
A full eye exam can help find certain eye diseases like:
- Presbyopia: when looking at close objects is harder to focus on, this can cause headaches, blurred vision, needing more light to see with and or sore eyes.
- Glaucoma: Virtually has no symptoms until a lot of damage has been done to our eyes, this is caused by having elevated pressure in our eyes, if it is not found in the early stage it can cause very serious vision loss.
- Cataracts: Are caused by a lens that is inside your eye which over time has lost its transparency causing a distorted cloud with your vision, this possibly could be fixed by changing your glasses or surgery.
- Macular Degeneration: In older adults this disease causes a degenerative change to your central vision, this is one of the most leading causes of vision loss.
A full eye exam can also detect:
- Type 2 Diabetes
- High Blood Pressure:
- Brain and Eye Tumours.
No matter what your age, get your eyes checked on a regular basis, if you have any symptoms that are listed above or some different ones, get your eyes looked at right away.
