Visiting the eye doctor, what you can expect

Going to the eye doctor can be scary if you don’t know what to expect. In this article we will outline what you can expect when you visit your Traverse City optometrist or ophthalmologist.

Eye Questions from the Eye Doctor

Your visit to the eye doctor will start with some questions. Your eye doctor will want to know what kinds of issues you are having with your eyes. Is your vision blurry? If so, does it get better when you blink or is it constantly blurry? How long has your vision been like this? Do you wear glasses or contacts? Have you ever seen any flashes or floaters? Do your eyes hurt? Do your eyes feel irritated or burning? When does this happen? How frequently? Have you tried anything to help with your eyes? Have you ever had any eye surgeries? Has another eye care provider ever diagnosed you with any eye conditions? Do any eye disease run in your family? Being able to correctly describe your eye symptoms can go a long way in helping your eye doctor reach the correct diagnosis.

Eye Function

Next, your eye care provider will want to evaluate how your eyes are functioning. There are many ways to assess visual function, but the most common is by testing your visual acuity. This happens when your eye doctor asks you to read letters on a chart. The smaller the letters you can read, the better your visual acuity. Visual acuity is most commonly tested one eye at a time. You may have noticed that sometimes your optometrist or ophthalmologist will ask you to read the letters on the chart through a tiny pinhole, this helps your eye doctor evaluate how well your eye should be able to see with the correct glasses prescription.

Your eye doctor will also perform other simple tests on your eyes, such as checking your pupils, evaluating your eye movements, measuring your eye pressure (intraocular pressure), and testing the visual field of each eye.

Eye Exam

Because eyes are relatively small as far as body parts go, your eye doctor needs magnification to carefully examine them. He or she also needs to be able to examine your eyes with a variety of light intensities and varying beam sizes. This is all made possible by a slit lamp. A slit lamp is the shiny gadget where your eye doctor asks you to position your chin in the chinrest while he looks through something akin to a microscope and shines bright lights in your eyes. The various knobs and dials allow your eye doctor to examine the various structures of your eye. By dilating your pupils, your eye doctor is able to examine your entire eye, including the lens, vitreous, and retina.

Based on what your eye doctor finds while examining your eyes, he or she may recommend additional in-office testing. For instance, if he suspects you may have glaucoma he may perform a visual field test. Or if she is worried about macular degeneration, an OCT (optical coherence tomography) scan may be performed. One of Dr. Potthoff’s favorite parts about ophthalmology is that the testing produces visual reports, which can be used to educate the patient about the condition of their eyes.