Common Misconceptions about Eye Health

A very common misconception is people don’t feel they need to get eye exams because they ‘see fine’. (We hear this all the time!). REALLY? If your teeth feel fine, does that mean that you don’t have any cavities? There are a couple of problems with that. If your prescription changes a little bit, you can still see fine but you definitely won’t be seeing any better. A lot of people don’t realize that eye exams monitor the health of the eye and for children who have a vision screening at the pediatrician’s office, that does not examine the health of their eyes – it merely tests distance vision. Conditions can come on pretty randomly without much notice, even if you don’t realize the problems are there. Early detection is the key with most eye conditions.

It’s like dental exams, you go every so often for cleaning. You don’t only go in when you feel like a cavity is growing. It’s for preventative measures, not when it’s too late. If people wait too long to go in for an exam, it can have adverse effects.If someone doesn’t have any issues with their eyes, why would they think something is wrong? It starts with the eye exam. They may say everything looks good, but they should still come back regularly. For people who don’t have an exam history, they don’t have a baseline of eye health, up to that point.

Another common misconception is wearing glasses makes your eyes weaker! NO. IT. DOES. NOT.

That is the farthest from the truth. Glasses allow you to see clearer, but the reason it seems like that is because when we turn 35 or 40, our eyes’ ability to focus on an object up close becomes more challenging and inconsistent because of muscle fatigue and the hardening of a focusing lens in the eye. So, regardless of wearing glasses or not, that allows the muscles to relax so you have less eye strain and headaches. But, since the muscles are relaxing when the glasses are on, everything seems blurry at first when the glasses come off. Common sense would lead you down the path that it makes your eyes weaker, but in reality, it just makes it more comfortable to see.

The vision misconception that the general public hears the most – how carrots can help one’s eyesight. WE SAY EAT LEAFY GREEN VEGGIES.

You always hear, to get your eyes healthier, you should eat a ton of carrots. We do get a lot of patients asking about that because of their desire to help their vision. But, that is a total misconception and I don’t even know how that started. Yes, carrots do have a lot of nutrients that are healthy for you in general. But, the most important nutritional advice we can give clients is to eat dark, leafy green vegetables like kale and spinach.

Many misconceptions are spread through word-of-mouth. A lot of things stem from the fact a patient hears something in their appointment that applies to them specifically, and share that as fact for everyone. However, what is true for one person isn’t true for the next. Also, this can happen when Googling something. Google is never a good place to start self diagnosing.

The misconceptions occur because eyes are the most commonly talked about organ of the body. Because we can assess our vision and we think we can assume that since we can see, our eyes are fine. This misconception is also a scary thought because you only get two of them. It’s easy to assume things that seem real to us because we can see them.

To combat conflicting information or misconceptions, A visit to the Eye Doctor is a good place to start.

When our team is checking out a patient for their exam, we ask them if they want to schedule next year’s appointment. So, for the patient, when it becomes a routine, it’s easier to do it.