Regardless of your physical well-being or your age, routine eye exams are vital for healthy eyes. Many eye diseases threaten more than just our vision, they can affect our overall well being. During an eye exam Dr. Ward and the Team at Lake Nona Eye Care do much more than just establish your prescription for contact lenses or eyeglasses. A compressive exam will include checking for eye diseases and other issues leading to vision loss.
Don’t put if off any longer, schedule your comprehensive eye exam today with Lake Nona Eye Care or call us at 407-658-9990.
Take Care Of Your Eyes This Summer
Swimming is a great way to cool down from the Orlando heat, but what you can’t see in the water can harm your eyes.
“Swimming is good for exercise and recreation, but swimmers can enjoy the experience even more by protecting their eyes against recreational water illnesses and the ultraviolet rays from the sun if they spend many hours poolside,” says Jeffrey Walline, O.D., Ph.D., chair of the AOA’s Contact Lens & Cornea Section and associate dean for research at The Ohio State University College of Optometry.
The sterile film protecting our eyes from bacterial infections is replaced with water from the pool as your face goes underwater. Which means the microscopic organisms and contaminates, such as bacteria, dust, and chlorine, can come into contact with our eyes.
“Contact lenses are known to harbor an increased number of microbes (small bugs that cannot be seen) during swimming, and exposure to water during contact lens wear increases the risk of eye infections, according to some studies,” Dr. Walline says.
To maximize safe contact lens wear, Dr. Walline recommends swimmers do at least one of the following:
Avoid wearing contact lenses in the pool.
Wear goggles over their contact lenses, if needed.
Remove their contact lenses immediately after swimming and disinfect them overnight or discard them.
“Good sunglasses will absorb nearly all UV incident on the lenses, and excellent sunglasses will fit the wearer properly, sitting close to the face and eyes, blocking UV coming from the sides and below,” says Citek who recommended children and adults wear sunglasses.
“A good pair of swimming goggles should not leak and allow pool water to accumulate in them,” Dr. Walline says. “Swim goggles can include a prescription to allow clear vision in and out of the pool or, without a prescription, to allow clear vision while wearing contact lenses.”