At Five Points Eye Care Center, we offer comprehensive eye exams for the entire family. These eye exams go far beyond simply updating glasses and contact lens prescriptions and are an important part of maintaining your family’s long-term vision and eye health.
Many people mistakenly believe that eye exams are only important if you notice your vision going blurry, or if your eyes start to hurt. On the contrary, conditions such as glaucoma and macular degeneration often show no noticeable symptoms until they’ve already caused irreversible damage to your eyes and vision. Annual comprehensive eye exams are the best way to detect these and similar conditions before they can do significant harm.
Furthermore, your child’s vision is an important part of their overall ability to develop and learn from the world around them. Blurry vision or poor visual skills, such as visual tracking and eye teaming, can make it difficult for your child to learn proper hand-eye coordination as a baby or make learning in a classroom difficult as they get older. Our Athens eye doctors have the training and technology to detect and treat these issues early on, so they don’t set your child’s learning and development back.
What Should I Bring To My Eye Exam?
It’s important to be prepared for your eye exam with the right documents and information so that you can get the most out of your time with our eye doctors.
It’s best if we have a clear picture of your overall health. For this, our team recommends you come prepared with notes on your personal and family medical history, any prescription or over-the-counter medications you take regularly, and any vision-related symptoms you may have experienced since your last exam.
You should also bring any glasses or contact lenses you regularly use so that we can test your vision both with and without correction. This will also help us determine if your glasses or contacts are still providing you with the sharpest vision possible, or whether you need an update to see your best.
Contact information for your primary care provider is also useful so that our eye doctor can be in touch about any issues that should be followed up on.
Dry Eye: What is it, and How’s it Treated?
If you experience dry, red, itchy, gritty-feeling, or watery eyes, you may suffer from dry eye syndrome. This occurs when your eyes are unable to stay properly hydrated either because they are not producing enough tears, or the tears being produced don’t have the right balance of oil, water, and mucus.
Dry Eye Exams and Treatments
Our eye doctors will use a slit lamp and other specialized tests, such as a Tear Break-Up Time test and Schirmer’s Test, to identify whether the problem is the quantity of the tears being produced, the quality, or both. Once we know this, we can find the right treatment to help you see more clearly and comfortably.
Treatments we may offer include artificial tears, heat treatments to unclog oil-producing glands in your eyelids, punctal plugs, and more.
Dry Eye Products
We offer a number of specialty dry eye products to help treat and prevent uncomfortable recurring symptoms. Below are some of the most popular:
Nordic Naturals Omega3
Our eye doctors are especially proud to offer Nordic Naturals supplements at our Athens eye care clinic. Nordic Naturals Omega-3 supplements are made from algae oil and fish oil. These natural sources maximize absorption in the body, making sure you get the most out of your supplements. Nordic Naturals Omega-3 supplements help prevent dry eyes, and they taste great too!
Ocusoft foam
Dry eye often results from dirt and debris clogging the meibomian glands at the inside edges of the eyelids. These glands are responsible for secreting oil that keeps the tears from evaporating before they can properly hydrate these eyes. This dirt and debris can also cause bacteria build-up and inflammation in the eyelid, making dry eye symptoms even worse.
Five Points Eye Care Center offers Ocusoft eyelid scrub, which helps clear away anything clogging the meibomian glands that can cause swelling or infection. In many cases, this can significantly reduce dry eye symptoms.
Advanced Eye Care Technology in Athens
Having the right eye care technology in place at our Athens eye care clinic is essential for providing every patient with the top-notch eye care they deserve. That’s why we offer the latest cutting-edge technologies for the detection and treatment of eye diseases and conditions. These include:
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Visual Field Examination
Evaluates your peripheral vision by asking you to press a button every time you see a flashing light shown in one of the quadrants within the viewing window of the machine as you look straight ahead. Peripheral vision loss can be a sign of glaucoma, optic nerve diseases, stroke, multiple sclerosis, and more.
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Optical Coherence Tomography (OCT)
Produces high-res 3D images of your retina and macula that can be looked at in fine detail, including cross-sectionally. This kind of detail allows your eye doctor to detect signs of glaucoma and other optic nerve diseases, as well as retinal diseases like macular degeneration.
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Digital Retinal Photography
These digital photos of the retina and optic nerve allow our eye doctors to detect evidence of conditions such as diabetes, hypertension, arteriosclerosis, high cholesterol, and AIDS. If these conditions are detected, we can offer various treatments and use further digital retinal photography to monitor their effectiveness.
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Corneal Topography
The cornea is the clear, curved window at the front of your eye that’s responsible for focusing incoming light for clear vision. A corneal topographer creates a digital image of the shape of your cornea, which allows us to accurately diagnose corneal diseases and determine the best fit for specialty contact lenses.
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Pachymetry
Tests the thickness of your cornea, which can be an indicator of inner eye pressure. Those with thinner corneas are considered to be at higher risk for glaucoma.
Want to learn more about eye exams at our Athens eye care clinic? Come visit us or give us a call at 706-543-2020 today!