If you’re a lucky person that has perfect vision, you may not think much about visiting an eye doctor. But the truth is that everyone can benefit from seeing an eye doctor.
Vision loss is the 9th most common disability in the United States. It can happen as a result of disease or an injury. And it can happen to anyone at any time.
In some cases, regular eye exams can help prevent vision loss before it begins to affect your quality of life. Even if you have perfect vision, you should get checked out regularly to prevent problems before they start.
Still not convinced? Check out these 6 reasons why eye exams are so important.
1. Up-to-Date Prescriptions
If you need prescription eyewear to see well, you should absolutely see an eye doctor yearly. Your prescription may change slightly over time and you’ll need a new one to achieve good vision results.
Contact lenses, in particular, can slowly cause damage to your eye if you aren’t caring for them properly. During a yearly check-up, your doctor will check to ensure that your prescription eyewear is clean, fitting well, and not causing any other problems.
2. Early Detection of Eye Diseases
Even if you don’t use prescription eyewear, yearly eye exams are still important. Eye diseases can creep up on you with little warning.
In many cases, by the time your vision is affected, the disease is already very advanced. There may be little your doctor can do at that point to save your vision. But, with early detection, it is often possible to slow or even stop the progress of the disease.
This is true even if you don’t have a history of eye diseases in your family. While many eye diseases are hereditary, that doesn’t mean they can’t happen to you. Your eyesight is precious and not something you want to mess around with.
3. Detection of Other Health Problems
In addition to detecting eye problems, many health problems can manifest in your eyes. Some of the things your eye doctor can detect include diabetes, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, and even some cancers.
As with almost any disease, early detection is important and a big help in keeping the disease from progressing or causing too much damage. While this is true for everyone, it is particularly important for young children and the elderly. This is because these are both populations that are more susceptible to serious health issues.
4. Good Vision is Important for Learning
Another reason that yearly eye exams are important for children and teens is schooling. Good vision is so helpful to the learning process. Much of what children learn in school is presented visually. An undetected vision problem can cause unnecessary hardship.
Obviously, a child can still learn if they have trouble seeing, but it is much more difficult. Plus, if the problem is something like myopia (near-sightedness) or astigmatism, the right prescription can help the child. No one wants their child to struggle unnecessarily in school because of a problem that can be addressed.
As a side note, don’t rely solely on the vision screenings that schools usually provide for children. These are often performed by volunteers and virtually never done by a trained eye professional.
The only purpose of the screening is to ensure that the child can see. There is no actual exam and therefore no possibility of detecting any eye diseases or problems early enough to do something about them.
Plus, there are many cases of children passing the screening even though they suffer from eye troubles. And parents are not always informed that their child failed the screening.
To ensure that your child is receiving the proper care, take them to a licensed eye doctor. This is the number one way to keep up with any prescriptions your child may need and catch any diseases or problems early enough to correct them.
5. Good Vision Equals Good Quality of Life
Good vision is integral to your quality of life. Of course, life doesn’t end for blind or vision-impaired people, but it does change drastically.
Vision is a huge part of so much of what we do. If you lose part or all of your sight, you may find that you can no longer enjoy many of the things you enjoy doing. You will have to rearrange your entire life around dealing with vision loss.
Thankfully, technology provides help for many people. But a simple eye exam every year can play a big part in ensuring that this never happens to you. It makes sense to take advantage of it.
6. Good Vision Will Keep You Safer
Good vision is also important for keeping you safe. Whether driving a car or operating machinery, you need to be able to see what you are doing. If you can’t, see well, you may be putting yourself and others in harm’s way.
Some types of vision loss can creep up so slowly that you may not even be aware of it. This can be even more dangerous.
When you are aware of impairment you know to take steps to deal with it. But when you think you can see fine, you don’t know to be extra careful. Check out these 10 signs you might need glasses to find out if this is you!
Schedule Your Eye Exams Today!
Now that you know how important yearly eye exams are, do something about it. If you don’t yet have a good eye doctor, find one and set up an appointment today.
If you’re in Boise, Nampa, Idaho Falls, or Twin Falls, Idaho we will be happy to serve you. Trust us here at The Eye Pros with your eye health. We offer personalized eye exams, eye health screenings for diseases contact lens fittings, and so much more! We’ll keep you seeing crisply and clearly the way you were meant to.
Don’t hesitate to contact us for an appointment today!
