COMPREHENSIVE EYE EXAMS

Your visual status, the health of your eyes, and the way your eyes function together are checked during an eye exam. Your vision will be checked at distance and near ranges, and a correction will be prescribed if needed.

The optometrist usually employs dilating drops eyes to enlarge your pupils to get a better look inside your eyes and to check for any pathologies or abnormalities. It usually takes these drops 20 minutes to work fully. The dilating drops will also temporarily paralyze the up close focusing abilities of the eyes. Objects far away will remain in fairly good focus.

We do recommend that you bring a driver with you if you don’t feel comfortable driving with your eyes dilated.

Neutralizing drops can be used which will reduce the time it takes for the dilating drops to wear off from about 6 hours down to about 1 hour.

A patient should have their eyes examined every year or two, based on the following factors:

• Preschool children should have their eyes examined before age one, again at three years and again before entering school at about age five.
• School age children should have their eyes checked yearly.
• Then, from age 18 to 45, adults should have their eyes examined at least every other year, unless the patient wears contact lenses or has other health issues such as diabetes, hypertension or thyroid problems; in such cases yearly exams are called for.
• After 45, adults should be examined yearly.