What to Look for If You Suspect You Have Macular Degeneration

You’re right to be a little concerned about macular degeneration since it is one of the leading causes of vision loss in America, and it’s difficult to spot without a regular, comprehensive eye exam.

There are two main types of macular degeneration: wet and dry. With wet macular degeneration, blood vessels beneath your retinae have the potential to leak fluid and blood, which can progressively worsen retina damage. Dry macular degeneration is the most common, and causes vision loss through degradation of cells within the macula.

People 50 years or more old are the most susceptible to these major forms of macular degeneration, and children are prone to a third, minor variation: Stargardt disease. This makes it especially important to not neglect your children’s eye health and get them into regular eye exams with opticians, since they often don’t realize that something is going wrong with their vision.

Catching the disease at an early stage is the best way to prevent and treat it, and a routine eye exam contains the following tests:

-    visual acuity to test vision
-    “Amsler Grid” to test the center of vision
-    Dilation to see the back of the eyes and catch diseases
-    Fluorescein Angiogram to check for leaking blood vessels

Visit the website to learn more about finding macular degeneration treatment in El Cajon.

Advantages of a Yearly Eye Exam

People often neglect eye health because change and deterioration typically happen very slowly, so it’s very important to try and schedule at least a yearly eye exam to catch any problems before they get out of hand. Eye exams aren’t just for getting glasses or contacts prescriptions, and you, your family or friends can go in for

-    LASIK surgery
-    Diagnosis and treatment of eye diseases
-    Safe removal of foreign objects or chemicals
-    Refractive surgery and more.

On a related note, pediatric optometry is a specialized service and is important in ensuring that your children perform well in school and can safely enjoy playing outside.

When you arrive at your appointment, expect to answer whether you’re on any medications or if there have been drastic changes in your general health. The vision exam that follows typically starts by reading a wall chart with and without lenses to give the optometrist a benchmark for your eyes and whether you are shortsighted, farsighted, neither or both. Then, the optometrist will test for essential eye health by examining your capacity for depth perception, eye muscle strength, peripheral vision, and color vision. If you’re curious to see if your medical insurance will cover an eye examination in La Mesa, visit the website.

How’s Your Vision?

Sometimes it takes a trip to the optometrist for people to realize their vision is starting to change. A quick eye exam might reveal that you could be seeing things a lot more clearly. 

Signs You May Have Diabetic Eye Problems

Diabetes presents you with enough health difficulties, so don’t let it get the best of your vision. Eye problems related to Diabetes, like other eye diseases, have very slight symptoms that may even be unnoticeable, but they can spiral out of control and lead to blindness. This is why it’s always worth scheduling an annual eye exam with your optician, diabetic or not.

Diabetic eye problems result from weakened blood vessels in the back of the eye. Your retinae can be seriously damaged after prolonged periods of diminished circulation.

Some of the key symptoms to be wary of are

-    vision loss
-    weakened color sight
-    dark/empty spots in your field of vision and
-    difficulty seeing in the dark.

There are more, but typically you’ll experience several of them, not just one.

If you’ve noticed any of these and are interested in finding treatment, your optician will recommend either a focal laser procedure, a vitrectomy, or a scatter laser procedure. The focal laser eliminates abnormal blood vessels and prevents any additional inefficiency, the scatter laser shrinks any vessel responsible for vision impairment and the vitrectomy heals the retinae and removes any scar tissue.

Visit the website for further information on getting diabetic retinopathy treatment in La Mesa.

Get Your Eyes Tested

Your vision is something that shouldn’t be taken for granted. A regular eye exam can help you discover and treat problems before they become too serious.

Tips on Helping Treat Pink Eye

Although it’s best to get a prescription when you have pink eye, there are a few things that you can do at home before getting an appointment with an optician.

The first step is that if you wear contacts, you should take them out until the pink eye subsides. This is essential for reducing pain and slowing eye drainage. If you absolutely need contacts and don’t have any glasses lying around, it’s better to get a temporary, cheap pair of glasses from an optician that would approximate your contacts prescription than not be able to see at all. Also, make sure you properly clean your contacts so that they have no remains of the virus later.

After that, compresses are very helpful. It’s up to you to decide whether a cold compress feels better than a warm compress or vice versa, but people tend to feel that a cold compress helps when you have allergies and a warm compress helps when the pink eye was caused by an infection.

A couple other pointers are

-    not to use antihistamines without a doctor’s approval and
-    don’t go to work or school until the infection subsides.

For more information regarding professional pink eye treatment in El Cajon, click through to the website.

How to Tell If You Are Nearsighted

While it may seem obvious and easy to tell if you are nearsighted or not, changes in eye strength occur very slowly and at a small enough rate that it’s very hard for us to notice, especially since most of our vision is passive. Children are especially ignorant of these subtle changes since it is generally difficult for them to understand that it’s possible for them to have better vision if they have the right prescription, and if the problem isn’t addressed, then they might struggle in school.

Because of these gradual changes, it’s best to schedule a routine eye exam at least once a year. Not only will you confirm whether you are nearsighted or not, but a skilled optometrist will be able to catch eye diseases or deficiencies before they go too far. Just a simple reading test with a brief examination of your eyes’ health is all you need to take good care of your eyes.

If you are nearsighted, you can get glasses, contacts or LASIK. Glasses and contacts generally work well together, since you can wear contacts in the day and have a pair of glasses for when you feel like taking them out. LASIK is more comprehensive, but effective and rewarding.

Visit the website for more information on nearsighted treatment in Chula Vista.