Eyes and Vision in Glenview, First Blog!

Hello Glenview Patch readers! As this is my very first blog, please allow me to introduce myself. My name is Dr. Andrew Neukirch and I have recently joined the community as an Optometrist this past January at Carillon Vision Care. I have been practicing in Bloomington, Indiana the past few years.

I have selected to blog in an attempt to help educate our community on the importance of preventative ocular healthcare, and to help answer any questions patch readers may have. I will begin with a FAQ excerpt from my quarterly newsletter:

Why should I have my eyes examined regularly?

In addition to ensuring proper eyesight, regular eye examinations allow your eye care professional to detect and treat diseases at the earliest possible opportunity. Some diseases do not have symptoms in their early stages. A good example is glaucoma, the most common cause of vision loss. Typically, glaucoma does not cause pain, and you don’t notice a change in your vision at first. By the time your vision is affected, we can only prevent it from getting worse because the vision loss is not reversible. If you have regular eye exams, your eye care doctor can more readily detect potential problems and prescribe proper treatments to prevent vision loss. Don’t determine the need for an eye exam on whether you are seeing relatively well. Even though your vision may be clear, undetected changes can occur from high blood pressure, diabetes, eye tumors and retinal disorders. So, don’t just rely on changes in your vision.

Remember, unlike the rest of your body, the eyes don’t usually hurt when something is wrong.

When should my child have his or her first eye exam?

The American Optometric Association suggests that children should have their first regular eye exam at 6 months. Follow-up exams should be done around age 2 to 3 because this is the age when a child’s visual system undergoes its most rapid development and when vision correction is most effective. For example your child could develop a “lazy eye” or amblyopia, which is a loss or lack of development of vision in one eye, usually resulting from a failure of the visual system to use both eyes together. The lazy eye will not function as well as the other eye. The brain is incapable or refuses to acknowledge the image seen with the lazy eye and the brain learns to ignore one image in favor of the other.Before the ages of 2 to 3, the condition can be treated and the brain will use that eye. After this age, it can still be treated, but not as effectively. The earlier it is diagnosed, the greater chance for complete recovery.

How frequently should children’s eyes be examined after their initial exam?

As with adults, children’s eyes should be examined every year, sometimes more frequently if there is an eye or vision problem or a family history of eye disease. School children use their eyes more frequently than adults to read and perform other school activities, so it’s extremely critical for them to have regular eye exams.

Again, since this is my first blog, I’ll keep it short. I encourage you to ask any questions you may have, or provide me with any eye related topics you would like me to address! Thanks for reading, and I’ll certainly do my my best to keep our community up to date on what is going on in the world of Optometry.

(Sources: InfantSEE.org and the American Optometric Assocation)

If you would like more information on Dr. Neukirch, please Google or visit his Facebook Page.