How often should you get an eye exam? There isn’t a one size fits all approach here. I typically recommend that everyone goes at least once every two years, however depending on your age and general eye health, you might need to go more. Enjoy the show.

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SUMMARY KEYWORDS

eye, vision, visual, eye exam, cataract, eyedrops, infant, vitreous, doctor, kids, macular degeneration, reducing, bilberry, developing, check, clarity, exam, problem, dry eye syndrome, tic toc

00:05

Hello, everyone, it’s Dr. Sam, I’d like to welcome you to my EyeClarity podcast. This is a show that offers cutting edge information on how to improve your vision and overall wellness through holistic methods. I so appreciate you spending part of your day with me. If you have questions, you can send them to hello@drsamberne.com.

00:46

Hey, everybody, it’s Dr. Sam. And I’d like to welcome you to another EyeClarity podcast. So I’m going to take a question from a follower from tic toc. She’s asking, number one, how often should she get an eye exam? And what type of eye exam should she get? Well, this is a great question. And I get this one, probably a few times a month. So generally speaking, if you’re an adult, it’s good to get a comprehensive eye exam every two years. A lot of it depends on your genetics, your lifestyle, how old you are. And these factors play into whether or not you should get more frequent eye exams, especially if the doctor finds something. Now obviously, if in your day to day activities, you start developing some blurred or distorted vision, you want to get to an eye doctor asap. Now, if you follow my stuff, you know that being proactive is everything.

And there are ways that you can reduce your visual stress, you can eat better, you can take care of your eyes when you’re working on digital screens. And even the prescriptions that you might be using are important based on you know, keeping your eyes healthy. Now for kids, it’s a little different. Now, my perspective is that, you know, for children, the kind of eye exam I like to get, at least with kids, is to get one that is more than just reading the distance eye chart. You know, I used to consult with a lot of schools and school nurses used to ask me what would be the best screening device to see if a child has a vision problem. And their thinking was that a lot of vision problems were missed, because they all saw the distance eye chart at 2020. Now remember, 2020 is like seeing a 1/3 inch letter at 20 feet. That’s only one aspect of your vision.

And it’s very static. And a lot of folks see 2020 vision eyesight, and yet they have vision problems. So in kids, one of the best screening devices is giving them a book or you know, something to read up close, and just to observe their reactions, responses and behaviors. So for example, in the kid, if you see them covering an eye closing an eye, bringing their reading material much closer, they’re squinting, you know, these are all signals that there’s probably some type of visual focusing problem. Now again, in my training, I look at the visual system from a developmental perspective, meaning that when I test a child, I’m comparing their chronological age to their performance age.

And I’m doing all kinds of tests in the areas of first of all their primitive reflexes, their gross motor and vestibular health, their eye movements, their eye focusing the visual coordination and even their perceptual skills, like visual memory or you know, other perceptual skills related to learning. You can even add things like your auditory processing, and you know, you’ve got a more comprehensive picture on what a child’s visual system is doing before you might prescribe any lenses. So with adults, you want to look for an eye doctor who is doing more than the bare minimum of checking your eye health and doing a distance acuity check. At least can you you know, have them check your near visual acuity and possibly things like your visual coordination, your peripheral vision and And you know those visual skills that are essential for optimal vision, visual health and wellness.

Now on the eye health spectrum, again, if you can either supplement with the very important nutrients like lutein, zeaxanthin, esta Xanthine, bilberry, vitamin A trace minerals, zinc and chromium, maybe adding bilberry making sure you’re getting enough fats and oils in your diet. Those at the very least, you know, eating a healthy, well balanced diet with a lot of plant based antioxidants. And we call it the rainbow method, taking care of your gut health, reducing your stress, you know, getting out into sunlight every day, you know, being very mindful that you’re not going to do things like monovision or wear progressive lenses all the time. You know, these are all factors that will keep your vision humming at a high level. So that you know if there’s a visual problem that starts to occur, you have some tools to improve your vision. And you’re just getting the report from the eye doctor. Now if say cataracts or glaucoma, or macular degeneration, run in your family, you want to have those things tested, you want to get a good retinal exam, good high pressure, check visual fields testing, you know, macular testing, these are very important to do.

And even if you start say developing a cataract, you can start looking at my protocols. And as long as it’s an early cataract, you have a great chance to neutralize the accumulation of oxidative stress that can occur in the lens of the eye. And another problematic area, of course, is in the vitreous where we get those bothersome eye floaters and you want to try to avoid things like posterior vitreous detachment, I would refer you to my YouTube video on posterior visual detachment your most people do get that in their life. And part of the reason is, is the collagen breaks down in the vitreous. So you want to make sure you’re using you know, natural eyedrops, maybe even my castor oil eyedrops in the evening.

You know, people with dry eye syndrome, it’s another issue where you want to make sure you’re getting enough of your fats and oils, reducing inflammation in the eyelids and also systemically taking good care of your endocrine health. And, you know, making sure that you’re hydrating your eyes with really healthy eyedrops. And not the stuff that you get in the drugstore, which which are chemically based, and they’re just going to dry your eyes out even more. So there’s a lot to this. But generally speaking, you know, if you go for an eye exam, and the doctor find something, that’s where you can plug into all my content, and you can start exercising and doing things that will help improve your vision, even though in traditional eye care, they say nothing can be done. Well, I’ve helped over 10,000 people and that that number is growing exponentially since social media. So there’s a lot that you can do. And it’s amazing, you don’t even have to do that much. And you’ll start to see improvement and that will, you know, prove to you that you can actually do it.

You know, even back to the kids conversation, even if these are moms and dads that have newborns, I consult with, you know, parents who’ve just had, you know, infants and they started having a cross die, or an eye wandering out, there are some very excellent things that you can do to interrupt those things. And you know, the last thing you want to do is start putting glasses on an infant, or a toddler just makes no sense. There’s so many different brain body stimulating things that you can do to help encourage the infant or toddler to learn how to use their eyes together. And then at the other end of the spectrum, with our elders, you know, you hit age 70 And maybe you’re starting to develop macular degeneration.

There are a lot of great protocols that you can employ to preserve your vision. So don’t give up. Don’t lose faith. You know, you get your vision exam, and then you take that data, and you can apply my things to help you. So every two years, get an eye exam. For kids, I would get the exam probably maybe three, four years old, I would look for a developmental type evaluation. And, you know, if you do those things, I think you have a super great chance to preserve your vision for A lifetime. So that’s my show for today. I want to thank you so much for tuning in. Until next time, take good care

10:15

Thank you for listening. I hope you learned something from the EyeClarity podcast show today. If you enjoyed the episode, make sure to subscribe on iTunes or Spotify and leave a review. See you here next time.