What Health Risks Can Be Detected During an Eye Exam?

Eye exams can detect a wide range of health risks and diseases, from diabetes and high blood pressure to brain tumors and cancer. In fact, you might be surprised at the number of health risks an optometrist can detect during a comprehensive eye exam. Diabetes, high blood pressure, glaucoma, high cholesterol, and multiple sclerosis are just some of the conditions that can be identified during an eye exam. An optometrist may also be able to detect signs of Lyme disease, iritis, and other eye conditions.

It's important to have a comprehensive eye exam on a regular basis to ensure that any health risks or diseases are detected early. Diabetes is a disease that affects approximately 10% of Americans right now. But, sadly, a large number of people have diabetes and do not even realize it, which can lead to numerous complications. Diabetes can be identified just by looking into your eyes during a complete eye exam.

People with diabetes often have an eye condition called diabetic retinopathy that damages the blood vessels in a person's retina. There are many cases where people find out that they have diabetes through an eye exam, rather than an exam by their family doctor. If your optometrist suspects that you may be showing signs of diabetic retinopathy during an eye exam, it's important to talk to your family doctor right away about it. About one-third of American adults suffer from high blood pressure. Left untreated, it can lead to heart attacks, strokes, and more.

While examining your eyes, an optometrist may be able to tell you if you have high blood pressure. It often causes sprains and other problems in the blood vessels in the back of a person's eye. It's essential that you control high blood pressure if you have it, as it can cause all kinds of eye problems. Glaucoma is one of the major eye conditions that can occur along with high blood pressure. Not only can high blood pressure be detected during a comprehensive eye exam, but high cholesterol can also be detected.

People with high cholesterol sometimes have a blue or yellow ring around the cornea. Deposits can also remain in the blood vessels of a person's retina that may indicate high cholesterol levels. In some cases, an optometrist can even determine if a person is about to have a stroke caused by high cholesterol by looking into their eyes. The cancer rate in this country has fallen quite a bit in recent years. However, cancer is still something that affects a large percentage of the U.

S. UU. There are many types of cancer that cannot be detected by a comprehensive eye exam. However, when it comes to problems such as blood, skin, and tissue cancers, your optometrist might be able to help with the screening process.

Each of these types of cancer usually shows signs that can be detected during a detailed eye exam. At a minimum, your optometrist may tell you that you should talk to your doctor about the possibility of developing cancer. Multiple sclerosis is a relatively rare disease, with only about 400,000 people in the U. But it's a crippling neurological disorder that can really affect a person if it's ever diagnosed. However, it's obviously important that you detect a brain tumor as soon as possible so that doctors can decide what to do next. Even if a brain tumor isn't cancerous, it can wreak havoc on brain activity.

A routine eye exam may reveal signs that you have high blood pressure. This condition often has no symptoms, but it can be related to potentially life-threatening conditions, such as heart disease. The optometrist can identify the effects of high blood pressure on the eye by detecting kinks, leaks, and tears in the blood vessels of the eye caused by the passage of blood through the vessels with force. If left untreated, it could result in restricted blood flow and even bleeding behind the eye. You may very well visit your optometrist for a routine refractive eye exam and discover that you have a problem with your thyroid.

An optometrist may have cause for concern about lupus if you notice swelling in the whites of your eyes during an exam. To many people's surprise, a routine eye exam can detect early signs that you may be suffering from diabetes. While you can determine many minor eye conditions by looking at your eyes, such as conjunctiva, you should see a specialist when it comes to detecting more serious health risks or diseases. You can avoid getting Lyme disease unnecessarily if your optometrist is able to see signs of Lyme disease during an eye exam.

Eye exams

not only detect minor infections but they can also reveal much more serious health problems that could worsen if left untreated. Your optometrist may detect something as serious as eye, brain or neck cancer which means that a simple routine eye exam could save your life. During one of them an eye doctor or optometrist will perform a refractive eye exam to evaluate your vision.

Whenever an eye exam reveals a possible health problem your eye doctor will recommend that you have more tests done by a specialist or your primary care provider. The most common eye symptom of this disease is iritis; a painful and recurring inflammation of the iris or colored part of the eye. This disease can cause a wide spectrum of eye changes from redness and rupture of blood vessels on the surface of the eye to severe bleeding and even retinal detachment inside the eye. As you can see it's very important for people to have a comprehensive eye exam on a regular basis.