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When I made the decision to start a blog I had a pretty good idea of the first couple of topics I wanted to talk about.  I knew I wanted to talk about Diabetes, Cataracts, Glaucoma and the health effects on your eyes.  I knew I wanted to educate people on blue light and the effects this hidden danger has on overall health, not just eye health.  But the root of all of this comes down to one simple thing, and that is getting checked and being proactive about your health and wellness.  I know I’m probably preaching to the choir here because if your reading this your probably at least moderately interested in your wellness.  No, I want to reach those that never visit a doctor, don’t know the name of their primary physician, has a vision that needs to be corrected but refuses to wear glasses or even buy a pair; I have family members like this…. (so very frustrating).  If we can convince more people to get on a routine health and wellness check every year there could be a lot of health conditions that may be able to be treated.  If most of these conditions are caught early we can start an appropriate treatment plan to help prevent or slow down the possibility of vision loss or impairment.  This goes for most illnesses and conditions if caught early enough the chances of treatment having any effect greatly increases.  So, this brings me to my part of it and spreading the word on the importance of yearly eye exams as part of your yearly Health and Wellness checks.

I know you don’t really think of your eyes as being healthy or unhealthy, but for obvious reasons, your eye health is very important.  Do me a favor, close your eyes and tell me if that’s the way you want to see the world for the rest of your life.  I know it sounds harsh, but you have the ability to close your eyes and see nothing, a debilitating condition millions of people live with every day.  In most cases, I would imagine that retinopathy exists, and loss of vision was inevitable, but maybe one case could be prevented or slowed if they just went in for a yearly routine exam.  Most of the time it’s nothing, those headaches are just that, that blurry vision or recent tearing up could turn out to be something simple.  But it could also be something bigger underneath that requires immediate medical attention and treatment.  Diabetic retinopathy, for example, has no symptoms at first.  This devastating disease that eventually leads to vision loss starts off with NO SYMPTOMS.  This is why people who are diabetic or borderline diabetic need to get a comprehensive diabetic eye exam to make sure this is not happening, and if it gets the patient on the appropriate treatment and on the road to healthy eyes.

Now, if you come to my office everyone gets dilated, yep sorry folks your leaving my office wearing the big plastic shades and won’t be able to see right for a couple of hours; but I do it to everyone.  If your doctor isn’t dilating your eyes and properly assessing the back of the eye then it’s time to find a new doctor.   I’m going to look back there and if I see something that looks suspicious I’m going to send you for more diagnostic testing, which lucky for my patients I take care of all in-house.  I could’ve gone ahead and not invested in high tech diagnostic equipment, not given my patients the best care possible, but I did.  I am a medical optometrist and I take pride in being able to asses, diagnose and treat disease and any other eye condition that may arise.  If further medical treatment is required I will send you over to the appropriate specialist and be there for you throughout the entire process.  That’s what is expected from your health care professionals, and your eye doctor is no less important to your overall health.   Don’t settle for anything less, there are plenty of eye doctors out there and you and your eyes deserve better.   And if you so happen to live in the South Florida area your more than welcome to visit us here at Lakes Family Eye Care.

So, this brings me to those that need their vision corrected, know they can’t see, are in denial that they need glasses or contacts or Lasik or anything, anything that will correct their vision.  I’m not kidding people I have people that sit in my chair and 1000% have a prescription and refuse to do anything about it.  I beg you, for the sake of all of us out there, for the sake of road safety alone, if your vision needs correction then please do something about it.  At the very least wear glasses to drive, its ok your loved ones will read the menu for you at the restaurant, but they can’t always tell you if something is on the road, or if you gave that lady at the register the fifty-dollar bill instead of the twenty-dollar bill.  This is one of the easiest things you can do to make your eyes healthier, follow up with the recommendations made by your doctors when it comes to correcting your vision.  I promise you once you start seeing the way you’re supposed to you’ll wonder how you ever walked around seeing the way you did.

Well, everyone, I hope you enjoyed this post, I know it sounds like a lot of doom and gloom but it’s really the only way I get people to pay attention to their eye health.  I think they call it ‘scare tactics’.  I’m not sure, it seems to work on my kids sometimes.  I hope at the very least you pulled away from this one wanting to visit the doctor cause if you did then the purpose of this article will have been a success.  Visit the doctor, any doctor it may save your life.