Eye Exams Help Identifying Chronic Health Conditions
In a variety of ways, our eyes are often the truest indicators of how we’re feeling.
A quick glance at someone’s eyes can reveal a lot of information… Their mood, stress level, and whether or not they got enough sleep last night!
But this goes much, much deeper. When your Vision Source® optometrist takes a closer look at your eyes, he or she can detect early warning signs for a host of serious and chronic conditions. Diabetes, hypertension, and other diseases leave telltale markers in our eyes, and vision care professionals are often the first to notice them.
When a routine eye exam leads to early disease detection, it can help patients prevent serious conditions from progressing, and in some cases even save a life.
Eye Exams Can Reveal Common “Silent Killers”
Some of the biggest health concerns we face today are “silent killer” diseases—conditions that progress slowly over time, without easily recognizable symptoms in the early stages. Many recent studies have identified some that are frequently found first by vision care professionals, including:
- Diabetes: in its early stages, small blood vessels in the eye can swell and leak.
- Hypertension (high blood pressure): blood vessels can narrow, bend, or change color.
- High cholesterol: fatty deposits in the eyes and plaque in retinal blood vessels are telltale signs.
There are many other diseases that can be caught early by a routine eye exam, including rheumatoid arthritis, multiple sclerosis, and cancer. Regardless of the condition, the sooner it is detected and diagnosed, the better chance a patient has to reduce its impact.
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Take Charge of Your Health With an Eye Exam
While we’re not a substitute for your primary physician, regular visits to our practice are important for maintaining your full, healthy lifestyle. Our mission goes further than just providing glasses and contacts—we want to be your lifelong partners in vision health. Together, we’ll help you establish habits that will not only protect your eyes, but your whole body health.
Thanks for reading our blog! We want each of our patients to know how much we enjoy providing them with the very best, highly personalized vision care.