Whether you wear glasses or not, regular eye examinations are an essential part of preventive health care. While they primarily focus on maintaining your eye health, these crucial checkups can detect more than just vision problems.
Board-certified ophthalmologist and eye surgeon Akhilesh Singh, MD, offers comprehensive eye exams at Downtown Ophthalmology in the Forest Hills neighborhood of Queens, New York. Read on to discover the surprising chronic health conditions your eyes can reveal.
Your retinas — the light-sensing tissues at the back of each eye — are the only place in the body where live blood vessels and nerves are visible without surgery. As part of your eye exam, Dr. Singh uses a specialized device, called an ophthalmoscope, to inspect the retina for subtle changes or damage.
Because the optic nerve and retinal blood vessels connect to the greater vascular and nervous systems, irregularities in these tissues are often an early sign of other health problems, such as:
Elevated blood sugar levels can cause the delicate blood vessels in your retinas to swell or leak fluid, a condition known as diabetic retinopathy. In many cases, these changes are one of the earliest signs of undiagnosed Type 2 diabetes or prediabetes.
Hypertensive retinopathy occurs when high blood pressure causes the arteries that supply the retina to thicken and narrow, restricting blood flow to the tissue. The level of damage seen during an eye exam often reflects the damage to blood vessels elsewhere in the body, including your brain, heart, and kidneys.
Specialized imaging tools like optical coherence tomography can reveal microscopic marks in the retina that indicate a prior eye stroke (retinal artery occlusion). While healthy patients may also have these marks, called retinal ischemic perivascular lesions (RIPLs), studies show that higher numbers of these tend to correlate with underlying heart disease.
A blue or yellowish ring around the cornea can be a normal sign of aging, but for patients under 40, it can indicate high levels of cholesterol. Dr. Singh may also detect cholesterol deposits, or buildup, in the retinal blood vessels.
During an eye exam, Dr. Singh can see early signs of inflammation and changes in muscle function that may signal a thyroid imbalance, such as Graves’ disease. This condition, also known as thyroid eye disease, causes your immune system to mistakenly attack the thyroid gland along with muscles and tissues surrounding your eyes, leading to protruding eyes, eyelid retraction, and damage to the optic nerve.
These serious health problems can develop silently, often presenting without noticeable symptoms until the condition reaches an advanced stage. That’s why regular eye exams are an essential part of a proactive wellness routine, just like your annual physical exam.
Most people should have a comprehensive eye examination every one to two years, even if their vision seems fine. However, Dr. Singh may suggest more frequent visits if you have a health condition that can cause eye problems (like diabetes or hypertension), if you are over the age of 60, or if you have a family history of eye disease.
Are you due for an eye exam? Call or go online today to schedule your next appointment at Downtown Ophthalmology.
