Not Every Eye Exam Is Created Equal

We all know that having your eyes regularly examined is important in order to maintain the overall health of your eyes.  You should be booking yourself in for an eye exam at least every two years. However, not all eye exams are the same. Your eyes are incredibly complicated and require a bit of thorough TLC every now and then to make sure that they are working as they should be.

What To Look For From A Standard Eye Exam

When going along to a standard eye exam, you should expect a few things to be covered during your time there:

• A standard eye chart (with the letters decreasing in size)
• A cover test (which will check your eye alignment)
• The interior of your eye examined using an ophthalmoscope (bright torch)
• Pupil reflexes tested

For a more detailed and thorough eye examination, you should make sure that it’s carried out by an ophthalmologist or optometrist. A standard eye exam covers the basics of eye health, but may not necessarily offer up any diagnosis if any problems are discovered. A standard eye exam usually lasts around 20 minutes. Obviously, the more detailed the examination, the longer it will take, with some taking around an hour for the full exam. A standard eye exam will include examining your eye, both inside and out, using a bright torch which allows the optometrist to see the internal structures of your eye and test your pupil reflexes. Your long, intermediate and short-distance vision will also be tested and your optometrist will use a combination of lenses to see if an improvement is made when you are wearing them. Finally, the movement and co-ordination of your eyes will be observed to ensure that there is good muscle balance and that your eyes are working together.

What To Look For From A More Detailed Exam

Not only will a more comprehensive exam take longer, but it will cover many more important aspects of your eye health. This could involve going into your general health and medical history, conducting a fundus evaluation, a fluid pressure test, visual field testing and refraction examining. We’ve put together a handy Your Eye Exam Explained guide which is packed full of information on what is involved in an eye exam. If the specialist detects any areas of particular weakness, they may decide to investigate further with more extensive tests.

What To Expect From An Eyesite Eye Exam

At Eyesite, we have four different types of eye exam. These range from our Extended Eye Exam through to our Advanced GOLD Eye Examination. Our standard eye exam not only covers your eye health, vision testing and prescription services but we also include a digital image of the central retina of your eye using our Fundus Camera. Our Advanced GOLD Eye Examination is a full and extensive exam, covering general health, eye pressure, vision, retinal imaging of the back of the eye, an optomap retinal scan, optical coherence tomography imaging and much more. This ensures that your eyes are in the condition that they should be in and, if there are any concerns, we are able to guide you through the next steps to take.For further information on each of our four types of eye exam, have a look at our Eye Examination Services page.No matter what eye exam you decide to choose, the most important thing to do is book it in your diary. Once you’ve done that bit, all you’ve got to do is turn up and leave the rest to your optometrist!