Eye Care Part I - Getting Your Exam
Eye care. It's so easy to take your eyes for granted until you
start to have problems. They may start innocently as simply a
slight blurriness when reading or watching TV. Maybe you can't
quite make out the lettering on the screen all that well. But
it's not that bad. The problem is, it gets worse and worse until
there's a serious problem.
Problems with your eyes don't ever have to get to that point.
Regular eye exams every 2 years, which is what professionals
recommend, can prevent a world of problems. In this article
we'll cover basic eye care procedures and treatments.
The start of any eye care begins with a simple vision test.
People have been poking fun at eye charts for many years but
this simple test can help reveal some serious and not so serious
problems. When conducting an eye test, the optometrist will
place an object over the patient's one eye while testing the
vision of the other. The patient will read the letters off the
chart. On each line of the chart the letters are a little
smaller than on the line above. The reason each eye is tested
separately is because your eyes actually work independently of
each other and one eye can be weaker than the other, especially
if under the stress of much reading, or these days computer work.
Normal vision is considered 20-20. To have 20-20 vision a
patient needs to be able to read so many lines down on the eye
chart. Depending on how far down a patient can actually read
determines what their actual vision is. A mild case of myopia
(nearsightedness) would be a vision of maybe 20-40. A severe
case would be a vision of maybe 20-200. In most states you must
have at least 20-30 vision to be able to drive without glasses.
Anything above 20-30 and glasses would be required in order to
drive a vehicle.
Once it is determined that the patient is nearsighted or
possibly farsighted (where they can see things far away but not
close up) then corrective lenses are prescribed. The way these
lenses are prescribed is not an exact science unfortunately. The
doctor will place various lenses over the patients eyes and ask
the patient which looks better, this one or that one. In many
cases the difference between two lenses is so small that the
patient can't really tell. For the most part though this method
works well enough. After the prescription is determined the
glasses themselves are made. Depending on where the actual eye
exam takes place determines when the glasses can be completed
and how long it will take until the patient receives them.
If the exam takes place in a doctor's office with no facilities
for making glasses nearby then the patient has to take the
prescription to a place of his choice. This alone can take a day
or so depending on whether or not the patient knows of any
places off hand. If ,however, the exam takes place in a combined
eye exam and glasses making establishment then the patient can
literally walk a few feet to get the prescription filled and in
most cases can get the glasses made that same day.