2016 marks Dr. Tom Johnson’s 27th year in the eye care industry. His knowledge and willingness to help his patients with every eye care need is what makes him one of the top Family Optometrists in Central Minnesota. So with the start of a new year, here are some tips from Dr. Tom on how you can improve your eye health in 2016:
1. Regular Visits to Your Eye Doctor
Reviewing your eye health on a regular basis makes discovering potential problems (such as glaucoma, macular degeneration, refraction based lazy eye, etc) easier. Treatment early on is better and more effective than discovering a problem later and trying to reverse more significant damage.
2. Eating Carrots Can Be a Good Thing
Old wives tale? Not really. Leafy green veggies and orange colored veggies like carrots or squash are rich in antioxidants, which can radically slow down the process of certain sight blinding diseases.
3. Rule of 20/20/20
If on a monitor or reading for long periods of time, follow the 20/20/20 rule: every 20 minutes, look at a space 20 feet away for 20 seconds. This gives the eye a chance to rest and lessens the chance or severity of future nearsighted advancements and general strains to the eye.
4. Contact Lens Health
Some folks don’t know that you CAN wear certain contact lenses overnight or for a certain amount of time. More importantly, some don’t know that the wearing of ANY contact lens overnight can lead to a vision debilitating infection, and can even create a scar that will lead to permanent vision loss. NOT FUN. Know your lenses.
5. Dry Eye
There are many conditions that can lead to dry, scratchy eyes, which can also cause reduced visual ability, even with your best glasses or contact lens prescription. There is merit to regular hot lid compress cleaning every day - it will increase the performance of your tears and lessening the dry eye symptoms. We can illustrate how to properly perform lid treatments, and when used with other meds or treatment options, they can drastically help dry eyes.
6. Glasses Cleaning
What a puzzle. I’ve seen the most absurdly scratched glasses mostly from the people who feel they never see clearly and they need to “power scratch” their glasses. The more they scrub, the worse they see. At Infinite Eye Care, we train our patients how to properly clean daily in a way that scratches (while not impossible) are much less likely. I often stop by our in-office lab and illustrate it to my patients myself. I can describe it, but it’s so much easier to teach in person. Stop in and see a first-hand demonstration on how to properly clean your glasses.
For more information and assistance or to book an appointment visit infiniteeyecare.com or give us a call at 320.257.4990. We wish you a healthy and happy 2016!
