Welcome to 2020: The Year of Vision
Happy New Year to everyone. I hope 2019 was a wonderful year and that you are looking forward to a year of new possibilities. 2019 was a great year both personally and professionally. I had my third daughter in early 2019 and enjoyed a short maternity leave to get back to the clinic, but I was blessed with the most amazing spouse and family who stepped in to help me. The clinic experienced another year of growth and we added another co-worker to help with the busy load. But enough about 2019… I am excited for 2020, which is the year of vision, eye health, eye care, and eye doctors.
During the new year, Elite Eye Care will be finding ways to celebrate and educate all our patients, family, friends, and followers about vision and eye health. In order to start out the year on a positive note, we are celebrating National Compliment Day (January 24th, 2020) with a FREE Eyewear giveaway- essentially leave us a compliment on Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/eliteeyes/) or Google (https://g.page/eliteeyes?gm) and we will randomly select a winner from all the compliments left from now through January 24th, 2020. This is the first of many giveaways our office has planned so stay tuned and have fun participating. We will also be posting monthly blog posts about various eye topics.
The first blog topic is, what is the best way to kick start 2020? With an EYE exam of course! The American Optometric Association recommends children have their eye exams at age 6-12 months, age 2-3, then before starting school (age 5), and finally every 1-2 years thereafter. Many parents are under the misconception that a “school vision screening” is an eye exam. There is no eye health evaluation and the automated testing is prone to false readings, which is why a comprehensive eye exam is still recommended for school aged children every 1-2 years. Adults are recommended to have their eyes checked every 1-2 years, unless otherwise advised by your eye doctor.
The biggest take-home point in this blog post is that an eye exam is SO much more than your level of vision or if you need eyeglasses. Over the past years, I have diagnosed patients with eye related findings that were then found to be brain tumors, glaucoma, elevated cholesterol in a 7 year old boy, lymphoma, diabetes, high blood pressure, lupus, Sjogren’s, thyroid dysfunction, sleep apnea, basal cell carcinoma, retinal tears, multiple sclerosis, acne medicine related increased cerebral spinal fluid pressure in a teenage girl, and others that I am forgetting. Most, if not all, of these patients came in for a wellness eye exam without any concerns about their eye health and just wanted their vision checked for eyeglasses. So, lets kick start the year checking the eye chart to see if you can see 20/20 in 2020, but more importantly to monitor your eye health so that you can enjoy 2020 and beyond.
Cheers,
Dr. Keller