A DEEPER LOOK
I’m sure you’ve heard that dreaded word “dilation” and wondered if you really needed to be blurry for hours on end and wear sunglasses because the brightness is just too much?! Yes and no… Yes, it is so important to get your entire eye health checked each and every year, but now there’s a way to avoid all of those not-so-fun side effects!
In the past, the only way we could evaluate a larger area of the back of your eyes was by dilating your pupils. We put a few drops into your eyes that made the pupil, or black center hole of your eye, larger. These drops also made it so the iris, or colored part of your eyes, would not constrict once we put a light directly in to see. We would use a magnifying lens to get up close and personal with your retina, check for glaucoma, cataracts, and macular degeneration to name just a few things. However, those nifty eye drops would actually keep that pupil really large for several hours. This causes it to be blurry up close and lets more light inside the eyes creating more light sensitivity during that time as well.
Look at all the conditions we can see in your eyes!
So why did we keep insisting on dilating your eyes if it did that? Not only can we see the beginnings of several different eye diseases, but the back of the eye truly is a window into your overall health! When we peek into the back of the eye, we are looking to be sure we don’t see permanent damage from glaucoma that can take away your side vision. We are making sure your central vision is intact and doesn’t show signs of deterioration from macular degeneration. We are ensuring that there are no rips, tears, or holes on the tissue of our eyes that could cause a retinal detachment and permanent vision loss. Because we can look directly at your blood vessels without puncturing or cutting skin (the eye is the only place in the whole body that you can see them in this way!), we can sometimes diagnose high blood pressure, diabetes, or high cholesterol before your primary care doctor! Maybe you already know you have those conditions, but by looking at your blood vessels, we can see if they are being managed and well-controlled or not. Pretty cool, huh?! As you can see, if the eyes are healthy, the whole body is too, which is why we stress the importance of letting us look into the back of your peepers each year to be sure.
Now, more than ever, we find it extremely helpful to have this great technology that we can look into the back of your eye without dilation. During the COVID-19 pandemic, it is important to limit the time that each patient is in our office to ensure we don’t have too many people in the office at any given time. With the photo of the back of the eye, it only adds an additional 2-3 minutes to your exam. Whereas, with dilation, it adds an additional 30 minutes of time to allow for the eyes to dilate and our doctors to evaluate your eyes after they are fully dilated. Also with the photo of the back of the eye, our doctors are able to remain socially distant while still evaluating the health of the back of your eyes!
As you can see, it is so important to get the full health of your eyes evaluated each and every year. Now with our retinal photo, you can do just that while also maintaining socially distant protocols and limiting your time in our office. Be sure to tell our staff at your next visit that you want to get the retinal photo to check the back of your eye!
