Expect During Comprehensive Eye Exam
Your eyes are among the most important organs in your body. So you need to care for them in the best way possible. One of the ways to achieve that is by scheduling a regular comprehensive eye exam. A comprehensive eye exam helps to assess your visual system as well as the health of your eyes. It involves plenty of different tests. Unlike vision screening which only assesses a patient’s vision, a comprehensive eye exam involves a number of tests to completely evaluate your eye’s health and vision.
If you are planning to see an eye doctor for a comprehensive eye exam for the first time, you may not know what to expect. In this article, we explain to you what you should expect during your comprehensive eye exam and other important things you need to know. Let’s get started.
Table of Contents
Types of tests during a comprehensive eye care
Your health history
The first thing that the eye doctor will do before a fundoscopy is to get a complete medical history from you. The doctor will ask you about your family history. This information will alert the doctor of any conditions that need to be monitored closely, such as medications or allergies, or family history of systematic conditions such as diabetic vitreous haemorrhage.
Visual acuity
The test is to check how well you see individual letter details from certain distances. During this test, you will sit at a standard distance and be asked to read letters or symbols of different sizes, which get smaller as you move down the chart. The results are in a ratio of 20/20 or 20/40. If your results are 20/40, then you have good vision. If the result is 20/40, it means that you can only see at 20 feet what a person with normal vision can see from a distance of 40 feet.
Color blindness test
This is a test done to rule out color blindness. This test is important because your doctor needs to determine whether or not you are color blind.
Glaucoma
This is a test that the doctor will perform to check the pressure in your eye. It helps to identify any signs of glaucoma. Glaucoma is an eye disorder that causes damage to the optic nerve. It can cause irreversible vision loss if not treated early. It can be corrected through glaucoma treatment.
Slit Lamp Exam
Here, the ophthalmologist will examine the structure of your eyes, including the iris, eyelids, cornea, conjunctiva, retina, optic nerve, and lens. The test can also help detect if there are blocked blood vessels.
Refraction, Retinoscopy, Autorefractors, and Aberrometers
All these tests are means and methods of determining your eyeglass or multi focus lenses prescription.
Why is a comprehensive eye exam important?
Through a comprehensive eye exam, eye problems such as black spots in vision or retinal bleeding can be detected early enough and fixed before they turn catastrophic. Some of the most eye-threatening diseases include macular degeneration, cataracts, glaucoma, diabetic retinopathy, epiretinal membrane, etc.
In addition to that, you need to prepare adequately for your eye exam. Be ready to provide the doctor or the receptionist with the names of any medications you are currently taking as well as the history of your eye health. If you wear glasses, you can bring them along too.