When a parent brings their child for an eye exam at Vision Health Specialties, our eye doctors will be focused on making sure that the child can see properly and see well. They will help the child for any reason, such as wearing glasses, and/or referring them over for vision therapy, or even to see a pediatric ophthalmologist who comes to our office every six weeks. Our practice offers lots of different avenues so we can help every child with their vision.
Anytime, a child comes in for their first-time glasses, our eye doctors will take extra time to explain everything about their eye health and wearing eyeglasses not only to the child but to the parents as well. As we have an in-house optical, the parents and child will be guided to our opticians to assist the child. Since this will be the child’s first time wearing glasses, we treat the first fit as an exciting event. This will keep the family’s spirits up and ensure the child feels good about the change. Usually, for some reason, children are very excited when they get to wear their first glasses and are very disappointed when the eye doctor tells them “No, you don’t need any glasses.” Regardless, the opticians are highly skilled at maintaining an upbeat atmosphere to make for a pleasant experience for the child.
Although most first time fits are school-aged children, our eye doctors are also involved in a program called infantSEE, where babies or infants as young as 3-6 months old will have their eyes checked. Even at that early age, our eye doctors can examine and diagnose the early stages of any potential problems. Parents don’t have to wait until a child enters school or develops a noticeable reading problem Our eye doctors can find problems and treat them way before that has to happen.
Many teens look into wearing contact lenses now and some children start as early as 8 or 9. We’ve seen some children come in asking for contacts especially when they’re active in sports. As long as the eye doctor informs the child patient about the responsibilities, and they feel comfortable that the patient will oversee the care of the contact lenses, our practice will le a child go ahead and start wearing contacts at earlier ages. We’ve seen many changes in eye care compared to 15-20 years ago.
Rarely does a teenager inquire about LASIK surgery. Most often, our eye doctors will explain the reasoning behind why everyone should wait until they hit 18 or older. While LASIK is extremely safe, the issue is not age related. We need to ensure their eyes are stable with a prescription. Usually, that happens between the ages 18-20, when the prescription changes start slowing down and become fully stable. That’s what we’re looking for — not necessarily the age of the eye.
For a LASIK procedure in Midland, we prefer the patient is 21 or older for the same reason. We want to avoid a sudden prescription change, where 1 or 2 years down the road, they have to go back to glasses or contacts or even do an enhancement. We want every patient to be happy the first time around
Medical eye care services, such as dry eye, allergies or even medical check-ups occur in all ages. If the parent calls about their child, even babies, or infants, and all the way to adulthood, our eye doctors will handle just about any medical need or urgent eye care.
Unfortunately, when little children get poked in the eye with a pencil or toys from roughhousing, we’ve treated many injuries. Other types of eye injuries as well could include regular eye infections, conjunctivitis and such. We can take care of all of that without having them to go to their pediatric physician.
On the other hand, adults experience a lot of dry eyes in West Texas. Most often due to the environment after many years, dry eye symptoms can get pretty harsh. Our eye doctors, however, have developed a very aggressive dry eye treatment towards, and likely the area’s top eye doctors for dry eye treatment. With their regimen of lids scrubs and eye drops, they’ve helped many chronic dry eye patients.
There are some contact lens patients who require prescription eye drops or artificial tears throughout the day as well to handle their dry eyes. But most of the modern contact lenses avoid this issue and help keep the eye most.
We also see many patients for our practice’s glaucoma management. We follow eye pressures and retinal imaging scans, and our eye doctors can prescribe glaucoma medications, change the medications as needed if their pressure goes up, or maintain the same rate when stable. We also check the visual field every 6 months to make sure that no vision loss is occurring. Anywhere from glaucoma, macular degeneration, to retinal problems, our eye doctors have a role in managing their eye health. If someone comes in and has an issue with part of their vision being gone, we can check that out. In case there’s a detached retina, we’ll direct that patient to see a specialist. The retinal specialists here are so busy and so booked out, patients appreciate how our eye doctors can help out, screen what patients have a serious problem, and directly go to the next step by visiting an ophthalmologist.