Protecting your eyesight is one of the most essential things you can do to help maintain your quality of life. Some kind of sight-threatening eye problem impacts one in six adults age 45 and older. And the risk for vision loss just increases with age.
In reality, a recent American Academy of Ophthalmology (AAO) report estimates that more than 43 million Americans will develop age-related eye diseases by 2020. Since the leading causes of blindness and low vision in the United States are mostly age-related diseases such as macular degeneration, cataract, diabetic retinopathy and glaucoma, securing your eyesight as you age is a vital part of your health care.
Tips For Protecting Your Eyes
To secure your eyesight and keep your eyes healthy as you age, think about these basic standards:
1. Learn if you are at higher risk for eye diseases. Be aware of your family’s health history. Do you or any of your family struggle with diabetes or have a history of high blood pressure? Are you over the age of 65? Are you an African-American over the age of 40? Any of these qualities increase your risk for sight-threatening eye diseases. Regular eye tests are especially important, because an early medical diagnosis can limit any vision loss and assistance preserve your vision.
2. Have regular physical exams to look for diabetes and hypertension. If left unattended, these illness can cause eye problems. In particular, diabetes and high blood pressure can result in vision loss from diabetic retinopathy, macular degeneration and eye strokes.
3. Try to find warning signs of changes in your vision. If you begin observing modifications in your vision, see your eye doctor immediately. Some trouble signs to look for are double vision, hazy vision and problem seeing in low light conditions. Other symptoms and signs of possibly major eye issues that warrant immediate attention include red eyes, regular flashes of light, floaters, and eye pain and swelling.
See also: Eye Exercises to Improve Vision
4. Work out more frequently. According to the AAO, some research studies recommend that routine workout — such as walking — can decrease the risk of age-related macular degeneration by up to 70 percent.
5. Secure your eyes from damaging UV light. When outdoors during daytime, constantly use sunglasses that protect your eyes from 100 percent of the sun’s harmful ultraviolet rays. This might help reduce your risk of cataracts, pinguecula and other eye problems.
6. Eat a healthy and balanced diet. Various studies have shown that anti-oxidants can possibly minimize the risk of cataracts. These anti-oxidants are acquired from eating a diet consisting of abundant quantities of fruits and vibrant or dark green veggies.
Research studies likewise have shown that eating fish abundant in omega-3 fatty acids might decrease your risk of developing macular degeneration. Likewise, think about supplementing your diet with eye vitamins to make sure you are getting adequate amounts of the nutrients you have to keep your eyes healthy.
7. Get your eyes checked a minimum of every two years. A comprehensive eye examination, including dilating your pupils, can identify your risk for significant eye illness such as diabetic retinopathy, which has no early warning signs or symptoms. An eye examination likewise can ensure that your prescription for spectacles or contact lenses depends on date. To find a doctor near you, click here.
8. Don’t smoke. The lots of threats of smoking cigarettes have actually been well recorded. When it comes to eye health, individuals who smoke are at higher risk of establishing age-related macular degeneration, cataracts, uveitis and other eye issues.
In addition to following these standards, make sure to use safety glasses when dealing with tools or taking part in active sports to help prevent eye injuries that possibly could cause permanent vision loss.
It’s true that following these actions is no assurance of twenty-twenty throughout your life time. However maintaining a healthy lifestyle and having regular eye tests will definitely reduce your risk of establishing a sight-stealing eye problem that otherwise might have been avoided.
Can I prompt everybody to obtain a routine eye checkup.
My Crohns impacted my eyes in the form of Uveitis, this is inflammation within the eye, strangely I had no symptoms – normally individuals get red itchy and irritated eyes, all ideas that something is wrong, however not in my case so it went untreated. This caused a removed retina and subsequent loss of 80% vision in one eye. This was many years earlier now, over the last three years my optician picked up that there was a lot of inflammation in my other eye and referred me to an eye specialist. Following bad reactions to the steroids to reduce the inflammation the pressure in my ‘good’ eye was alarmingly high, this didn’t respond to treatment and I wound up having another operation on this eye to get the pressure down.
So drop in an optician and discuss that you have Crohns and ask them to look for inflammation.