Eye exams more important than you might think

Rick De Vries

When there is something wrong with your eyes, it could mean there are issues elsewhere in your body.

That is the message local optometrist Dr. Grant Balen conveyed when he spoke with the Barrhead Leader on Wednesday, May 11, adding eye exams are much more important than people realize.

“A full eye exam assesses a wide range of things including movement, coordination and the eye ball’s general health as well,” Balen said, adding nerve processes are also examined.

Diseases and conditions such as Multiple Sclerosis (MS), Parkinson’s and other neurological disorders are sometimes detected during an exam, Balen said, adding in his opinion MS is especially prevalent in the Barrhead area.

“Diabetes, high blood pressure, aneurysms, inter-cranial cysts, tumors, you hope to never see any of that stuff but it happens,” he said.

For instance, Diabetes affects everything associated with the eye but damage is most often seen towards the back of the eyeball, and Balen said there is a name for it — diabetic retinopothy, which means there is bleeding in the retina.

“Taking pictures of the eyeball with the technology of today really helps in the assessment of vascular changes,” he said, adding such changes are indicative of potential issues in other organs — kidneys for example.

“People say that the eye is the window to the human soul and they are right, in a way,” Balen said, adding the eye is the only place in the human body where one can examine blood vessels in their natural state ‘without being too invasive’.

Free eye exams for children under the age of 19 and seniors over the age of 65 are recommended yearly, Balen said, because the rate of regeneration and of degeneration increases or decreases with age.

“For adults, it is recommended that they get an eye exam once every couple of years, and it is important to watch developments,” he said.

As we get older, Balen explained, the conditions outlined above become more prevalent and while there are always exceptions to the rule, seniors are statistically the most vulnerable age group.

“You can see issues at any age, but the frequency with which they occur increases the older we get,” he added.