July is Healthy Vision Month! A lot of people remember to attend their regular checkups with their family physician, but neglect their eyes! Healthy vision month is a great yearly reminder to “keep an eye” on the health of your eyes, and it’s a great time to take notes on things to remember about our visual health. Williamson Forward talked to Dr. Steven Wilson, an optometric physician in Williamson, to get the facts.
General Practitioner For Your Eyes
“The easiest way to understand (why optometry is so important) is to consider your optometrist as being the general practitioner for all things relating to your eyes,” Dr. Wilson says. “Through technology and high level training, optometrists are able to determine ocular health status, eye alignment, and coordination, and visual accuracy. I work with patients as young as 1 month old, and as mature as 100 year olds.”
Your optometrist will also help to coordinate care with eye surgeons if required, and help get glasses or contacts for those who need them.
Regular visits to your optometrist are important, as they’ll help you find any issues early on. “The majority of ocular disease that I detect is in patients who have no symptoms at all,” Dr. Wilson says. “Early detection is always the key.” He also recommends dilated examination, which increases the ability of your doctor to detect diseases. “Annual dilated eye health examination gives us the highest probability of detecting eye disease as early as possible.” This is especially important for diabetic patients, so they can reduce the risk of vision loss due to diabetes.
Dr. Wilson also emphasizes the use of protective lenses when spending time in the sun. “Summertime provides an opportunity for increased outdoor activity,” he says. “Protection from UV radiation is important, because this wavelength of light has been proven to cause cataracts and increase risk of macular degeneration.” He recommends transition lenses, which change automatically when you go outdoors, for patients who wear glasses.
Above all else, Dr. Wilson hopes that patients with Wilson EyeCare Associates come away with peace of mind. “What I plan to do is give them peace of mind, knowing we’re doing all we can to protect their precious vision and eye health.”
To learn more about Wilson EyeCare Associates located in downtown Williamson, West Virginia, visit their Facebook page.
Photo from Wilson EyeCare Associates Facebook.