Vision changes usually happen slowly, and your eyes and brain are good at adjusting to them. You might hold your phone a little farther away for months before you notice anything’s different. Plenty of people go years between eye exams without realizing their glasses aren’t keeping up.
Some signs are easy to spot once you know what to look for. You might need an eye exam if you notice blurry vision, frequent headaches, tired or dry eyes, trouble seeing at night, or any sudden change in your sight. An updated prescription may be all you need, and gritty, irritated eyes may call for dry eye treatment.
How Often You Should Get an Eye Exam
An eye exam with an optometrist checks your eye health along with how clearly you see. Some eye diseases don’t cause noticeable symptoms early on, so your optometrist may spot changes before you do.
Adults 20 to 64 should book an exam every 1 to 2 years, and adults 65 and older should come in every year. If you can’t remember your last visit, it’s probably time.
Common Signs Your Vision Is Changing
These signs tend to build gradually, which makes them easy to ignore.
Blurry Vision & Squinting
Words in a paperback or on your Kindle might look fuzzy around the edges. Faces across the hockey rink may not look as sharp as they used to, and you might squint more often to read a menu or a road sign.
Blurriness often means your prescription has changed. If you’re in your 40s and need to hold things farther away to read them, you may be noticing presbyopia, the age-related loss of up-close focus that usually starts between 40 and 45.
Headaches & Eye Strain
Headaches that build through the afternoon can be linked to your eyes. Long stretches on a laptop or phone can lead to digital eye strain, which may leave your eyes tired, watery and irritated.
When you stare at a screen, you blink about 4 times a minute instead of the usual 17. That can dry out the surface of your eyes. Your optometrist can check whether an outdated prescription is adding to the strain and talk with you about ways to ease it.
Kids feel this too. Lots of screen time and up-close work is linked to higher rates of myopia, or nearsightedness, which makes faraway things like the whiteboard look blurry. If your child spends hours on a tablet or Nintendo Switch, ask your optometrist about myopia management.
Trouble Seeing at Night
Driving home after dark can feel harder than it used to. Oncoming headlights may seem brighter, and the edges of the road can be tougher to make out.
Age plays a part, and so can cataracts, which cloud the eye’s natural lens. Night vision trouble may also point to age-related macular degeneration (AMD), a condition that affects your central vision. Your optometrist can find the cause and explain your options.
Signs of Dry Eye & Eye Discomfort
Uncomfortable eyes can make a long day feel even longer. A few types of discomfort are worth mentioning at your next visit.
Dry, Gritty & Itchy Eyes
Dry eye disease happens when your eyes don’t stay moist enough, and about 30% of Canadians deal with it.
Watch for a few of these:
- A gritty or sandy feeling under your eyelids
- Burning or stinging
- Redness
- Itchiness
- Watery eyes (strange as it sounds for a dry eye condition)
Artificial tears may give you short-term relief. If your symptoms stick around or get worse, book an exam so your optometrist can look for the cause.
Light Sensitivity
Sunlight might bother you more than usual, even on a cloudy afternoon. Light sensitivity may point to a scratch on your cornea, the clear front surface of your eye. It can also come with keratoconus, a condition where the cornea thins and bulges into a cone shape.
Urgent Eye Symptoms That Need Prompt Care
A few eye symptoms come on quickly and need prompt care. Call us right away if you notice any of these:
- Vision that suddenly goes blurry, even if it clears up again
- Double vision that starts without warning
- A shadow or curtain across part of your vision
- Flashes of light
- A sudden shower of new floaters, the small specks that drift across your vision
Flashes and a curtain over your vision can be signs of a retinal detachment, which is a medical emergency. Call us for eye pain, redness that comes with pain, or any injury where something hits, scratches or splashes into your eye.
If blurry vision comes with numbness in your face or body, dizziness or trouble speaking, go to the nearest emergency room.
What an Eye Exam Can Reveal About Your Overall Health
During an exam, your optometrist looks closely at the blood vessels and nerves at the back of your eye. Changes there can be early clues to health conditions elsewhere in your body, including:
- Diabetes
- High blood pressure
- High cholesterol
- Vascular disease, which affects blood flow through your body
Diabetes is easy to miss on your own. As many as 1 million Canadians are living with it and don’t know it yet. If something stands out, your optometrist can share what they found with your family doctor so you can look into it together.
Noticed a Change in Your Vision? Let’s Take a Look
If any of these signs sound familiar, book an exam and let your optometrist take a closer look. Our exams include detailed imaging of the back of your eye, and we’ll take the time to explain what we see in plain language.
We see patients of all ages, from kids to seniors, so the whole family can come to one place. Book your family’s next eye exam with the team at Diamond Valley Vision Care.
