Information on Senior Eye Exams for the Celina and Plano Communities

At Lone Star Vision, our optometrists at our Celina and Plano optometry locations recommend that people over 60 have an eye exam at least once a year. Prescriptions usually get progressively worse as you get older, and your glasses need to be replaced more often. Even more importantly, your eyes are more susceptible to disease when you get into your senior years. Early diagnosis is the best way to make sure your eyes stay healthy as long as possible.

Our Optometrists Talk About Senior Eye Care

During your annual eye exam in our Celina or Plano optometry offices, our optometrists will check your visual acuity to find out whether your glasses need to be upgraded. That’s just the beginning of the examination, though. Senior eye care is about the health of the eyes as well as the ability to see clearly. One of our eye doctors will use drops to dilate your eyes, to enable them to see inside your eye more clearly. They’ll use a series of instruments designed to check for common diseases that are more common to appear as you get older. Some of the ones we check for are:

  • Cataracts  The front of your eye is covered with a crystalline lens. If the proteins in the eye begin to break down, they can clump together and stick to the surface of the lens. This is called a cataract. It can make your eyesight look yellowed or cloudy, and can eventually cause blindness if left untreated. As with many other eye diseases, we can diagnose cataracts long before you notice any symptoms, giving our eye doctors the ability to treat your disease when it’s just forming.
  • Glaucoma  The fluid inside your eyeball is constantly move in and out. If one of the ducts in the eye becomes blocked, the fluid can build up, raising the pressure inside the eye. This increase in pressure, called glaucoma, can eventually damage the optic nerve. As one of the leading causes of blindness in the United States, early diagnosis is key to getting treatment before permanent damage is done.
  • Diabetic Retinopathy  The back layer of your eye is called the retina. It’s where the pictures are formed and then sent to your brain. With diabetic retinopathy, the retina is damaged, causing fluid to leak into the center of your eye and blurring your vision.
  • Age Related Macular Degeneration  When the center of the retina, or macula, deteriorates, it damages the sight in the center of the field of vision. As it progresses, blindness can occur in the center of your sight.

Our Eye Doctors in Our Plano and Celina Optometry Clinics Discuss Eye Treatment Options

If our Plano and Celina eye doctors diagnose your disease early enough, treatment is possible to slow the progress in some conditions, and stop it in others. For cataracts, self-care is the best way to prevent the condition from worsening, but we surgery can remove cataracts once they affect your daily life. The best way to treat diabetic retinopathy is to take control of your blood sugar. Damage from glaucoma can’t be recovered, but if caught early enough, loss of vision can be slowed or prevented. In all cases, the first step is a thorough annual eye exam.

As your condition progresses, we offer many options for helping you deal with your worsening eyesight. There are magnifiers that mount right to your eyeglasses, allowing you to use both hands while still seeing better. Handheld or stand magnifiers allow you to see things more clearly. There are also products designed for people with vision impairment, such as self-threading needles, large-print books, audiobooks and talking sport watches.

If you have any questions about our services, please contact us today at (972) 378-4104 (Plano) or (972) 382-2020 (Celina).