Remote Video Testimonial VSP DrGlassman

Like everything. If you're going to have your car fixed, you don't want them just to look at the tires. You want them to look at the engine and the gas and the oil. When you look at an eye exam, you have to do everything from checking the visual acuity, how clear a person can see it near reading and at distance, the muscle balance, if the eyes are well aligned, if the color vision is normal, but then even more, checking for cataracts and lid diseases. Diseases of the eye, which could be associated with physical conditions such as thyroid disease, can be seen in an external ocular evaluation. You look inside the eye for cataracts. You look inside the eye for macular degeneration and retinal problems. All of these can affect the vision. A thorough eye exam includes all of this. In an eye exam, you can find such things as brain tumors, arteriosclerosis, diabetes, hypertension. Even such diseases as anemias and leukemias can be determined by eye exam. Most people should actually have their children see an ophthalmologist by the age of five, if there are no known ocular problems in the family, or even a two or three if there's been a history of crossed eyes or blurred vision or juvenile cataracts, or if they see an abnormality in the child's eye. And to have your eye examined as you grow older every two or three years to make sure that there's no intervening medical problems that are affecting the eyes that may not be affecting the vision. Many people believe that it's the vision that tells you whether or not they have a healthy eye, but that's not true. You can feel very fine but have advanced disease. You can see beautifully but have advanced disease. So having an eye exam in your 20s every three to five years, in your 40s, every one to two years, in your 60s and above every year.