A lot of people don’t think about their eye health until they start having a problem reading their nightly book or making out the signs on the highway. That is a mistake.

Taking a proactive role in your eye care can improve your overall eye health and preserve your vision. You’ll reduce your risk of degenerative eye diseases and protect your overall quality of life.

Here’s everything you need to know about caring for your eye health:

Frequency of Eye Exams

Getting an eye exam is one of the most important things you can do for your eye health. The general recommendations are to get an eye exam every year to three years. However, those recommendations can change depending on your age, your family history or other risk factors.

Good eye care starts young. The American Optometric Association says that children should get their first eye exam at six months. They should then have a follow-up exam at three years and again just before starting school.

Those who don’t have any risk factors can then get an eye exam every two years until the age of 60. After that, eye exams should be performed yearly.

Children who have risk factors may need to get an eye exam earlier than six months or more frequently than every two years. Risk factors can include premature birth, developmental delays, crossed eyes or a family history of eye problems.

Risk factors for adults may include health conditions like diabetes or high blood pressure, eye injury, or a family history of eye problems. Adults who work in jobs that could threaten their vision may also need more frequent eye exams.

What to Expect in the Eye Exam

A comprehensive eye exam includes several tests that assess not only your vision but also your eye health.

The exam will usually start with your doctor asking you about your overall eye health and if you are experiencing any problems, such as pain, blurred vision or other vision issues. Your doctor will also ask you about your eye health history and your family’s health history. If your family has a history of glaucoma, for example, it will increase your risk for vision problems yourself.  Illnesses such as diabetes can also impact your eye health.

Your doctor will test your vision distance with the classic eye exam test: The giant letter chart with the big “E” right on top. This test will measure how well you can see at near and far distances. You will be asked to cover one eye while reading certain lines of the chart with the other eye.

Your doctor will shine a light in your eyes to look for any problems and to test the reaction of your pupils. You will also be asked to follow an object with your eyes so your doctor can evaluate their movement.

Drops will be put administered to dilate your eyes so your doctor can inspect your retina and the optic nerve. Your doctor will also use a special machine to administer a fast puff of air to your eye to measure the eye pressure.

All of these tests will measure how well your eyes can see, how far they can see, and how well they work together. The tests will also look for the early signs of eye disease, such as glaucoma, presbyopia, or astigmatism.

Eye Protection

Getting an eye exam on schedule is a great way to monitor your eye health and to discover the early signs of a problem. However, you also need to protect your eyes to prevent these problems from occurring.

Wearing sunglasses can help you protect your eyes every day. UV rays can damage your vision and your eyes. You should wear your sunglasses even when you don’t think the sun is very bright. UV rays can be just as damaging on cloudy days.

Eating a healthy diet can also help you protect your eye health. The antioxidants in leafy greens like spinach and kale can protect against cellular damage from things like sunlight and pollution.

Vitamin C is also an antioxidant and — with Vitamin E — can build healthy tissue. Good sources of Vitamin C include grapefruit, strawberries and Brussels sprouts. Sources of Vitamin E include nuts like almonds and pecans.

By taking a proactive approach to your eye health by eating a healthy diet and getting regular eye exams, you can maintain strong vision throughout your life and reduce your risk of eye disease. You’ll be glad you took these steps when you don’t have to worry about getting glasses or contact lenses.

Your baby may not be able to see much in the womb, but eyesight develops rapidly in utero. Your baby’s eyes remain closed until about the seventh month in the womb. Even though the baby will be practicing blinking frequently after that, he or she won’t be able to see much more than a blur.

At birth, your baby can only see about eight to 12 inches forward. However, vision will begin to develop vision rapidly, and soon will allow the baby to work out more shapes and colors.

Your baby’s eyes are doing hard work from early in pregnancy through the first years of life. The eyes are learning to dilate and contract, to react to light, and to focus on images.

From your pregnancy through the first years of your baby’s life, you have significant influence over your baby’s eye health (as well as overall health). Here are a few things you can do to give your baby the best start for healthy vision:

Get the Right Prenatal Care

Since so much of your baby’s development happens before birth, proper prenatal care is essential. You must eat a healthy, balanced diet to give your baby all the necessary nutrients, and you must attend regular appointments with your obstetrician.

Proper prenatal care will also reduce the risk of birth defects, which can also affect vision.

Early Eye Care

When your baby is first born, doctors will administer eye drops to reduce the risk of infection and protect the developing eyes. It is important to deliver your baby in a hospital or other professional health facility with experienced care providers.

During the early months of your baby’s life, you can encourage healthy vision development by changing the height of the crib, placing a mobile near the crib or a variety of toys on a playmat, and playing hand games like Patty Cake. Different toys and activities will stimulate your baby’s sight.

Installing a night light in your baby’s room will also help your baby focus on objects in the room and strengthen eyesight.

The American Optometric Association recommends that babies get their first eye exam at six months of age. Your baby won’t be asked to read the letters off an eye chart, obviously. However, your doctor will inspect your baby’s eyes, including their movement and their reaction to light.

Ongoing Eye Care

As long as your baby does not have any risks such as a family history of eye disease, it probably won’t be necessary to have another appointment until age 3. After that, he’ll need to have another eye exam just before entering school, usually around the age of five.

Taking your child to these eye exams can help discover problems in their early stages. Early treatment can help preserve eyesight.

Signs of Problems

Knowing the signs of eye problems can help you get your child the care he needs before the problem becomes worse.

Since your baby isn’t talking yet, you’ll have to observe his behavior carefully. Signs of a problem with his vision may include:

• Red or crusty eyelids
• Excessive tearing
• Sensitivity to light
• Constant eye movement
• White pupils

Some of these symptoms may indicate an infection, which if left untreated could cause vision damage. However, some of these symptoms could indicate an eye disease, which could lead to gradual vision loss.

If the symptoms are the result of an infection, getting immediate treatment can get rid of the infection as quickly as possible and reduce the risk of eye damage. If the symptoms are the result of an underlying disease, early treatment may be able to slow the progression of the disease.

Sometimes, these symptoms could just be signs of a developmental delay. Therefore, it is important that you not panic if you notice any problems with your baby’s vision. Instead, you should talk to your pediatrician to diagnose the issue and learn if there is a real problem.

Attending regular pediatrician visits is essential to your child’s overall health. Even if the appointment is not for eye care, maintaining these regular appointments can help your pediatrician become intimately familiar with your child’s health. If anything changes, your pediatrician will notice it more quickly and get your child the treatment he needs.

Give your baby the best start in life by getting proper prenatal care and getting the right pediatric care. Your baby will enjoy stronger vision and a lower risk of eye problems later in life.

The causes of eye pain are numerous and can range from any form of accidents to infections. In many instances, eye pain can go away naturally, but it is always important to visit a medical professional for him or her to eliminate any serious problems and prevent irreversible eye complications. Apart from vision problems and eye diseases, most people visit the eye professionals because of eye pain.

Most people with eye pain describe the situation as having a sharp, burning, dull, shooting, gritty, throbbing, stabbing or aching pain in the eyes. Many people, however, mistake symptoms of sinus, headaches, toothaches, or migraines with those of eye pain, thus the need to visit an eye professional immediately an individual experiences pain in the eyes.

Symptoms of eye pain

Although the main symptom of eye pain is pain in the eyes, other discomforts can accompany the condition including:

•        Excess production of tears or any other form of clear, colored or thick discharge
•        High sensitivity to light
•        Conjunctivitis
•        Having a sensation of foreign bodies in the eyes
•        Vomiting, nausea, headaches as well as decreased vision

Causes of eye pain

As mentioned above, the causes of eye pain can be as many as you can count, and a problem with any of the many parts of the eye can be the cause of the pain. However, the causes of eye pain have two main classifications, ocular pain and orbital pain.

Ocular pain

This type of pain affects the outer part of the eye and the main causes for this include:

Abrasions or ulcerations of the cornea – The transparent part of the eye is called the cornea, and it can develop abrasions from foreign body scratches or contact lens overuse and ulcerations from abrasions or infections. The foreign bodies in the eyes causing the abrasions and ulcerations are usually the cause eye pain.

Chalazion or Sty – These conditions cause lumps in the eyelids, owing to blockage of an oil gland. The lumps irritate the eye every time an individual blinks and this irritation leads to eye pain.

Conjunctivitis – This represents any reaction on the conjunctiva (the membrane that covers the eyeball and lines the eyelid) resulting from chemical, bacterial, viral, or allergic inflammations. The eye pain here will usually be mild, and the eye will turn red and become itchy.

Blepharitis – Eye pain can result from an eyelid inflammation caused by the plugging of the oil glands along the edges of the eyelids.

Chemical and flash burns – Exposing the eye to chemicals such as bleaches or household cleaners that contain an acid or an alkaline will result in a painful chemical burn. A flash burn, on the other hand, will result from exposing the eye to intense light, such as the light that comes from tanning booths, arc welding, or during a very sunny day.

Orbital pain

This form of eye pain occurs deep within the eye, with the main causes being the different types of eye diseases.

Migraines – Migraines are severe headaches, and there is no doubt between their relationships with orbital eye pain.

Glaucoma – The intraocular pressure that results from glaucoma will usually lead to eye pain. If an individual does not seek medical attention for glaucoma, it can lead to several eye defects including blindness.

Traumatic injuries – An injury to the eye will usually lead to eye pain, injuries such as a blow to the eye, involvement in a vehicle accident, or an object penetrating the eye.

Iritis – Iritis is a condition of the eyes where the iris is inflamed. The iris is the colored part of the eye. This condition usually leads to eye pain.

Sinusitis – When an individual’s sinuses have viral or bacterial infections, the sensation in the eye socket or orbital will undoubtedly cause eye pain.

Optic neuritis – This condition describes the optic nerve inflammation, which can result from viral infections, bacterial infections, or multiple sclerosis. Optic neuritis causes pressure buildup in the areas behind the eye and, therefore, leads to eye pain or even visual changes.

What a doctor will do for you

A doctor will begin by diagnosing the problem and looking for the best course of treatment before things get any worse. A doctor will perform certain eye examinations such as a slit-eye exam, detect whether there is abnormal pressure in the eye, and use dilating drops to see inside the eye clearly.

Depending on the problem causing the eye pain, the doctor can recommend medication or a surgery to get rid of the underlying problem and the eye pain completely.

Vision therapy is a doctor-supervised, non-surgical and customized program of visual activities designed to correct vision problems and/or improve visual skills. Over time, it has evolved as quite a controversial form of treatment. Some doctors are completely in favor of it, especially when it comes to vision correction in children. However, there are others who strongly oppose it and call for other conventional methods. Regardless of what choice you make, it is important to keep an eye out for the signs and symptoms that may help you identify if your child needs vision therapy.

The Importance of Vision Therapy

Parents who react favorably towards the advice of their optometrist believe that prevention is better than cure. Indeed, this is what vision therapy is all about. It is non-surgical, and thus involves a combination of eye exercises, sight-enhancing methods and state-of-the-art optometric devices. These aim to relieve your child from any vision problems. If the requisite vision therapy sessions are begun promptly, they will have a large impact in reducing the rate of progression of the vision problem. Moreover, they may also provide an ultimate cure in the long-run, thereby eliminating the need for invasive surgery.

Recent research has emphatically stated that reading difficulties exhibited in young children are often a result of undiagnosed or untreated sight-related problems. A startling discovery has been that of convergence insufficiency, also known as improper eye alignment. Statistics reveal that this problem shows up in 1 out of 20 school going children, whereas undiagnosed vision problems affect over 60% of them. This certainly points towards the need to rectify sight-related learning problems in youngsters from an early age.

What Vision Therapy Can Provide

Vision therapy offers innumerable benefits and can effectively eradicate common vision problems that your child may have, without requiring surgery. Some of the common vision problems that children often have, and can be treated by vision therapy are:

-Strabismus (irregular eye alignment)

-Convergence insufficiency

-Crossed eyes

-Double vision

-Amblyopia (“lazy eye”)

-Reading and learning disabilities

Signs and Symptoms

Parents should be mindful of how their children interact visually with their surroundings at home and during school. While participating in activities during work and play, it is possible that children may exhibit subtle signs of visual discomfort. These can then be treated appropriately with vision therapy.

The common signs of such visual problems include:

1. Abnormal mood swings. Your child may generally have an easy-going temperament, but may have started getting snappy and irritable at the playground or be refusing to listen to you at home. This can be indicative of a problem in visualizing and interpreting external stimuli.

2. Blurriness and headaches. A healthy child may start to complain of heaviness in the head, or portray an inability to read lettering properly from the blackboard. Regular headaches are also common in children with vision problems.

3. Poor reading, writing or spelling ability. This can easily be discerned since young children are continuously engaged in learning. Therefore, any problems while reading text or making sense of pictures should be brought to attention immediately.

4. Short attention spans. While this can also occur because some children are naturally impatient, it may also point towards a vision problem. Your child may be prevented from focusing on schoolwork because of it and hence may show disinterest in that particular activity.

5. Taking excessive time to do schoolwork. A child with a vision problem may be genuinely struggling to make sense while reading. He or she may be having a problem perceiving numbers or reading words from textbooks.

6. Misinterpreting letters. Your child may be mistaking one letter for another, for example,‘d’ for ‘b’ or vice versa. This symptom points to a vision problem with regard to making sense of basic alphabets, and therefore reading overall.

7. Re-reading or skipping lines. While reciting from a book, your child may not be able to continue from the subsequent line or may go over the same line again. This highlights a problem in viewing text in its entirety.

8. Frustration with work. Your child may have been performing well and have been deemed bright by teachers, but over time may have started to display irritation and aggressiveness when doing schoolwork.

The Bottom Line

Accurate vision is essential for your child’s development, and as a responsible parent, it is your duty to ensure that this is so. It is essential that parents seek an early optometric diagnosis as soon as they notice these signs in their child. A thorough evaluation of the symptoms by a specialist will confirm if your child needs vision therapy.The proper treatment can then be administered and the vision problems can be rectified for good.

Vision problems are one of the common issues that people are facing nowadays. One of these is the ailment of strabismus, and is quite a cause of concern.

What is Strabismus?

Strabismusis a vision problem which is popularly known as walleye, squint, or ‘crossed eyes’. It occurs when both eyes cannot focus on the same point at the same time. One or both eyes may look inwards or outwards, or turn up or down. In most cases, strabismus arises in the early years of childhood. This is known as congenital strabismus, and can therefore be detected and treated early.

This condition arises when the muscles in the eye fail to coordinate and move both eyes in the same way simultaneously. Strabismus is therefore the inability of the eye to perform this normal function for the provision of accurate vision. When this occurs, the pictures that the eyes send to the brain are misaligned and therefore cannot combine to produce a singular image.

Children rarely outgrow strabismus once they have been diagnosed with it. Undetected and untreated, it can cause worsening of vision and impair daily activity. If a child is continuously relying on one eye to see, this can turn into poor vision in that particular eye (also known as lazy eye or amblyopia). Moreover, it will certainly affect a child’s self-esteem. An inability to see properly will not only cause sight issues but will affect his or her appearance. This may lead other children to bully the child. In adults, the condition often manifests itself alongside double vision. This can often be the initial sign of a stroke in a person who did not have strabismus as a child. In both cases, medical assistance should be sought immediately.

How Does Strabismus Arise?

Strabismus that develops in childhood has no known cause, although it has been found to be an inherited trait. Sometimes, the condition may occur when the eyes are trying to rectify any other vision condition such as cataracts or farsightedness. The chances of coming up with strabismus can be increased if a child has Down syndrome, any disease affecting muscles or nerves, premature birth or head injury. In adults, however, strabismus may also develop from eye tumors, brain tumor, vision loss, Graves’ disease, stroke, or various muscle or nerve disorders.

What are the Symptoms of Strabismus?

The common signs of having developed this problem are:

1. Bumping into things due to limited depth perception.
2. Eyes that don’t move in unison.
3. Closing one eye in sunlight or squinting unnecessarily.
4. Peripheral vision, which crops up upon needing to turn the head or substantially tilting it to view an object.
5. Eyes that look in different directions.

How Can Strabismus Be Treated?

A pediatric ophthalmologist needs to be referred to for treatment of this condition. Initially, he may suggest non-surgical methods such as the use of optimal glasses. These will ensure that neither eye becomes amblyopiac (lazy). If that tendency exists, then the usage of a patch or similar measures will be undertaken until normal vision is restored. If the misalignment of the eye is due to farsightedness, it can easily be corrected by using eye glasses. In children, vision therapy (including the use of optical devices) will ensure that the lazy eye gets exercised before the age of 8. Moreover, amblyopia needs to be treated in childhood to avoid permanent blindness.

Surgery can be performed to correct strabismus by strengthening or weakening the muscles in one eye that affect movement. This procedure should ideally be performed during childhood by an experienced ophthalmologist.

In adults, surgery can be done using local anesthesia. The surgeon will begin by slitting open the outer layer of the eyeball in order to reach the muscle that has to be altered. Strengthening it would entail removing a small section from one end and re-attaching it at the same site. This will make it shorter and will allow the eye to turn towards that particular side. Weakening would require slackening the eye muscle by moving it back or making a partial cut across it. If any double vision occurs post-surgery, it will go away after a few weeks after the brain has adjusted to the restored sense of sight.

In all, strabismus is a worrying concern that impacts the lives of children and their parents alike. Care should be taken in case any of these symptoms exhibits themselves, and haste should be made to consult specialists before the problem becomes worse.