Why adults need an eye exam every year

Eye exams are more than a means of getting new glasses or contacts. It turns out your eyes can reveal a whole lot about your overall health.¹

By looking into your eyes, an eye doctor can spot signs of health problems in other parts of your body.¹ They may even identify health conditions before your primary care doctor does.¹ It’s one of the reasons an eye exam is an important part of your annual care plan, even if you don't have vision problems.  

But not everyone goes for a yearly eye exam. Results from a 2020 study showed that only about 57% of people at high risk of vision loss visited an eye doctor annually.²

Here are just a few of the ways staying on top of your eye exams helps you stay healthy, from head to toe. (Need a new pair of eyeglasses or contacts? Find an eye care provider today.)

You might think you’d be the first to notice if you had an eye disease, but sight-stealing eye diseases, such as glaucoma, often don’t show symptoms until they are more advanced — when the damage has already been done.³

You’re more likely to notice an eyelash in your eye than a serious eye disease in its early stages. That’s because only the front of the eye feels pain, says Chantal Cousineau-Krieger, M.D., an ophthalmologist at the National Eye Institute.

“Other parts of the eye have no pain fibers,” she says. “You can have damage to your retina or optic nerve and not notice until it has cost you your vision.”

That’s why early detection is so critical. During an eye exam, your optometrist can catch early signs of glaucoma and other eye diseases, such as:^{1, 3}

• Age-related macular degeneration (slow breakdown of light-sensitive tissue in the eye)  
• Cataracts (clouding of the lens)  
• Diabetic retinopathy (causes damage to blood vessels in the back of the eye)  
• Ocular melanoma (cancer of the eye)  

It’s important to keep up with your yearly eye exams as you get older. Eye diseases such as glaucoma and macular degeneration become more common with age, says Dr. Krieger.

Your optometrist doesn’t just help you protect your vision. They might also save your life.  

That’s because signs of conditions such as diabetes, high blood pressure, stroke, certain cancers and more can show up in your eyes.^{1, 4} The reason? The small blood vessels and delicate structures in your eyes are often the first to be affected by a disease.⁴

Lupus, for example, can lead to swelling in the eyes.⁴ A yellow or blue ring around your cornea could be a sign of high cholesterol.⁴

Optometrists are trained to spot these signs. Some other conditions that can show up in your eyes include:⁴

• Aneurysm
• Brain tumor
• Heart disease
• Lyme disease
• Multiple sclerosis
• Rheumatoid arthritis
• Thyroid disease

It’s easy to think people with good vision don’t need regular exams. Here’s the truth: These checkups can also reveal vision issues you didn’t even know you had. 

You can’t always tell when your vision is blurry — especially if that’s how you’ve always seen the world. It’s not until you try on that first pair of glasses that things become crystal clear.¹

An annual eye exam can uncover refractive errors, such as nearsightedness and farsightedness, even if you haven’t noticed any symptoms. Then, your eye doctor can prescribe eyeglasses or contact lenses to correct your vision.

Your eyes are unique and so is your lifestyle and health history. That means your eye doctor will have special advice that can help you protect your vision and keep your eyes healthy at every stage of life.

Your eye doctor can also let you know how often you need an eye exam. “Patients who have other diseases, like diabetes, high blood pressure or high cholesterol, are at increased risk of problems with their eyes,” says Dr. Krieger. “They should get screened more often.”

The same goes for people with a family history of eye disease, such as glaucoma, she says.

Making healthier choices — such as protecting your eyes from harmful ultraviolet light and eating healthy food — are other topics to discuss with your eye doctor.¹ They can help you make changes to lead a healthier lifestyle.

That’s a lot of benefits for one appointment. All it takes is to schedule a visit with your eye doctor.