Local healthcare professionals give their best advice for optical disease prevention

The old adage "An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure" is especially true when it comes to your vision.

Even if your eyesight seems perfect, you still need to see an eye doctor regularly.

"More times than not, patients associate 'good vision' with healthy eyes. Unfortunately, sometimes this is not the case," said Ryne Wood, an optometrist at Leet EyeCare. "A comprehensive eye examination can reveal underlying systemic issues that can not only save sight, but sometimes save lives as well."

That's because exams sometimes reveal serious medical conditions.

"The main things we screen for that people don't know they have is the need for glasses, but you can also catch diabetes, hypertension, glaucoma, cataracts and macular degeneration early before a patient may be aware that they have those things," says John Kinder, ophthalmologist at Eye Consultants.

Cutline File Credit:Stock photo

"Diabetes affects the small blood vessels in our body first," says Jeremy Dohogne, also an optometrist at Leet EyeCare. "The eye is the only place in the body where blood vessels can be directly observed non-invasively. Therefore, primary care physicians and endocrinologists require their diabetic patients to have an eye exam to determine how well their diabetes is being controlled.

"Diabetic retinopathy can lead to permanent vision loss, and so, optometrists and ophthalmologists will recommend at least yearly eye exams for diabetic patients (more often for those with existing diabetic retinopathy)," he says.

Eye care professionals also may detect hypertension, or high blood pressure, when they observe increased pressure in the eyes. They are referred to their primary care physician for ongoing treatment for high blood pressure, which is managed through medication.

For most people though, a trip to the eye doctor means checking for eye diseases, like glaucoma, macular degeneration or dry-eye syndrome.

Glaucoma is the second leading cause of blindness in the U.S. It has no symptoms, until the pressure in the eye becomes so high that it has started to cause some loss of vision.

Stock photo

"Glaucoma is often referred to as 'the silent thief of sight,' because it usually affects our peripheral vision first," says Dohogne. "It sneaks up on us since we don't normally pay a lot of attention to our peripheral vision. You also can't 'feel' glaucoma unless your eye pressure is quite high."

Just like a tire has a normal pressure, the eye has a normal pressure, and if the pressure increases over years, the increased pressure can damage the optic nerve, which connects the eye to the brain.

"Someone that has glaucoma usually has no symptoms, but they come in and they have high pressure in the eye and they might have damage to the nerve in the back of the eye," Kinder says. "The damage occurs slowly over years and oftentimes they don't realize they have a problem until it's too late and they've lost quite a bit of sight."

Another eye disease that can only be detected through eye examination is macular degeneration. It is the leading cause of blindness in people over the age of 50 in the U.S.

"Early signs of macular degeneration do not usually result in symptoms, such as blurred central vision or visual distortion," says Dohogne. "As it progresses it causes permanent central vision loss."

Macular degeneration, an age-related eye disease, has been linked to sun exposure and smoking. There are things people can do on their own to help prevent it, like wearing a hat and sunglasses, avoiding direct exposure to the sun and not smoking.

While macular degeneration cannot be cured, it can be treated.

"If they develop macular degeneration, certain vitamins are used to slow the progression of the disease," Kinder says. "There are things we can do in the office with eye drops, or sometimes we do laser in the office to lower the pressure that causes nerve damage over the years."

Another common ocular disease eye specialists screen for is dry-eye syndrome.

"Many people mistake dry-eye disease for ocular allergies because they have the same symptoms: fluctuating vision, itching, burning, watering and dryness," says Dohogne. "Most people don't know that dry-eye syndrome is actually a disease and a progressive one at that.

"If untreated, the glands that produce our tears will atrophy and eventually die off. Once they are gone they cannot be regenerated," he says.

Cataracts, which also are associated with aging, occur when the lens in the eye becomes cloudy, which causes blurry vision.

That condition can be easily corrected with surgery.

Early diagnosis can mean the difference between keeping or losing eyesight, so regular eye examinations are critical.

While people ages 40 to 60 may see an eye doctor every other year, when a person reaches age 60, annual eye exams are recommended.