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1. Why Are Eye Exams Important?
Routine eye exams are important — regardless of your age or your physical health. During a comprehensive eye exam, your eye doctor does much more than just determine your prescription for eyeglasses or contact lenses. He or she will also check your eyes for common eye diseases, assess how your eyes work together as a team and evaluate your eyes as an indicator of your overall health.
2. When Should My Child Have His/Her First Eye Examination?
As a parent, you may wonder whether your preschooler has a vision problem or when you should schedule your child's first eye exam. Eye exams for children are extremely important, because 5 to 10 percent of preschoolers and 25 percent of school-aged children have vision problems. Early identification of a child's vision problem can be crucial because children often are more responsive to treatment when problems are diagnosed early.
According to the American Optometric Association (AOA), infants should have their first comprehensive eye exam at 6 months of age. Children then should have additional eye exams at age 3, and just before they enter the first grade — at about age 5 or 6.
For school-aged children, the AOA recommends an eye exam every two years if no vision correction is required. Children who need eyeglasses or contact lenses should be examined annually or as recommended by their optometrist or ophthalmologist.
Early eye exams also are important because children need the following basic skills related to good eyesight for learning:
3. How Do Polarized Lenses Work?
Light reflected from surfaces such as a flat road or smooth water generally is horizontally polarized. This means that, instead of light being scattered in all directions in more usual ways, reflected light generally travels in a more horizontally oriented direction. This creates an annoying and sometimes dangerous intensity of light that we experience as glare.
Polarized sunglasses cut glare and haze so your eyes are more comfortable and you can see better. Polarized lenses contain a special filter that blocks this type of intense reflected light, reducing glare. Though polarized sunglasses improve comfort and visibility, you will encounter some instances when these lenses may not be advisable. One example is downhill skiing, where you don't want to block light reflecting off icy patches because this alerts skiers to hazards they are approaching.
In addition, polarized lenses may reduce the visibility of images produced by liquid crystal displays (LCDs) found on the dashboards of some cars or in other places such as the digital screens on automatic teller (bank) machines. With polarized lenses, you also may be unable to see your cell phone or GPS device. Boaters and pilots also have reported similar problems when viewing LCD displays on instrument panels, which can be a crucial issue when it comes to making split-second decisions based strictly on information displayed on a panel. However, for most other sports and activities, polarized sunglasses offer great advantages. And today, many polarized lenses are available in combination with other features that can enhance outdoor experiences.
Polarized bifocal sunglasses or progressive lenses are examples of options for the presbyope who also likes outdoor sports. And polarized photochromic lenses, which change from dark outside to light inside, may be right for the light-sensitive person who frequently is in and out of the sun on any given day.
Whether you spend your time waterskiing or boating, in-line skating or mountain biking, driving or jogging, polarized sunglasses may be the right choice to help you enjoy your life outdoors.
4. My doctor told me that I need to come in every year for an eye examination since I wear contact lenses. Why do I need an annual eye exam if I am not having any problems?
It is important that contact lens patients be seen at least once a year by their eye doctor. Annual eye health evaluations by your eye doctor can pick up small problems with your eyes or vision that you can't feel or see. Unlike glasses, contact lenses are foreign objects that rest and move around on the surface of the eye, therefore there is a higher potential for serious eye problems. Additionally, changes in your health, medications, home or work environment can affect the way a contact lens interacts with your eye health.
5. How is a "Contact Lens Fitting" different from a regular eye exam?
A regular eye exam is a comprehensive analysis of your visual and eye health systems. It does not include any of the contact lens fitting process. Additional measurements of the eye and more extensive evaluation of corneal health must be done before a contact lens fitting is completed. One of the steps in arriving at an accurate contact lens prescription is placing diagnostic lenses on your eyes and evaluating how they fit and how well you see. To insure the safety and health of your eyes, your doctor will most likely require one or more follow up visits after you've worn the lenses for a period of time before the final contact lens prescription is determined.
6. Do I need to replace my contacts on a routine schedule even if they feel fine?
Yes. Contacts get a protein build up that causes inflammation on the lid surface if they are not cleaned nightly and changed as scheduled. Many times the contact lens user is unaware of the inflammation until it gets to be severe. Once the inflammation develops, it can be resistant to resolution requiring the patient to stay out of contacts for months.
7. Why do I need a pair of glasses if I wear my contacts "all the time"?
We recommend that you remove your contacts at least one to two hours before bedtime. We encourage a pair of updated glasses for those days when your contacts don't feel perfect. If there is no "back up" people tend to over wear there contacts and place their eyes at risk for infection and inflammation.
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| Tuesday | 8:00am - 6:00pm |
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| Thursday | 8:00am - 6:00pm |
| Friday | 8:00am - 6:00pm |
| Saturday | 8:00am - 5:00pm |
