1. Learn If You Are At Risk For Eye Disease

Does your family have a history of diabetes or high blood pressure? Factors like these contribute to your risk of developing sight-threatening eye diseases, so make sure you’re aware of them.

2. Live A Healthy Lifestyle

The way you live can have a huge impact on your overall health, and that includes your eyes. Eating healthy foods, including plenty of fruits and dark green vegetables will help your eyes stay healthy, as will regular exercise. Avoid bad habits like smoking, as smoking increases a person’s risk of developing a number of sight-threatening conditions.

3. Schedule Regular Physical Exams

Chronic diseases like high blood pressure and diabetes can cause numerous problems if undiagnosed and untreated, including eye problems. Diabetes, in particular, can lead to vision loss due to diabetic retinopathy and macular degeneration, and untreated high blood pressure can lead to eye strokes.

4. Schedule Regular Eye Exams

The only way your eye doctor will be able to catch an eye disease early on to begin managing and treating it will be if you are scheduling your regular eye exams. Catching these diseases early is often the difference between vision loss and successfully saving the patient’s sight.

5. Be On The Watch For Changes In Your Vision

Whenever you notice a change in your vision, you should come see us right away. It could be something as simple as needing an updated prescription for your glasses or contacts, but symptoms like red eyes, flashes of light, a sudden increase in the number of floaters you see, and eye pain or swelling may be signs of serious eye problems that need immediate attention.

6. Protect Your Eyes From UV Rays

Even people with no predisposition for eye disease need eye protection from the sun, but it’s not as simple as grabbing the nearest cheap pair of sunglasses you can find. Make sure that the pair you wear block 100% of UV-A and UV-B rays before you buy them because sunglasses that don’t block UV rays can actually be worse than no sunglasses at all.

Get yourself an eye check at Goodlife Pharmacy, Westlands Arcade today!

As adults, we spend about 80% (if not more) of our time at work! The type of job you have will determine the kinds of risks your eyes are exposed to. We’re therefore going to break them up into two main categories: jobs that mainly involve physical labour and desk jobs.

Preventing Workplace Eye Injuries

Jobs such as construction or manufacturing work, mining, carpentry, auto repair, electrical work, plumbing, welding, and maintenance are all high-risk jobs when it comes to eye injury.

If you work in one of these fields, make sure to wear your safety glasses, goggles, face shield, welding helmet, or full-face respirator as needed.

If you have an office job, you likely don’t face the same risks of eye injuries, but your work conditions could still be hazardous to your eye health. The most common eye problem for office workers is computer vision syndrome, also known as digital eye strain.

Constantly staring at your computer screen might not cause permanent damage to your eyesight, but it can make your eyes tired and irritated and negatively impact your work, with symptoms including headaches, neck pain, inattentiveness, back strain, and dry eye.

A few ways you can fight back against that eye strain include repositioning your screen, following the 20-20-20 rule (Every 20 minutes, look at something 20 feet away for 20 seconds) making an effort to blink more often, using artificial tears, drinking plenty of water, using an anti-glare screen or wearing computer glasses, and, finally, scheduling regular eye exams!

1. Prevention Is Better Than Cure

A number of eye diseases are slow-acting so that they’re very advanced by the time you notice the symptoms. The most important action we can take to avoid permanent vision loss from these types of diseases is to schedule those regular eye exams so that they can be caught early on and treated.

2. A Simple Vision Screening Won’t Cut It

Let’s take schools as an example. Many schools provide free vision screenings, which seems like a pretty good deal. The problem is that these screenings focus on visual acuity, which means they don’t catch everything. Only a comprehensive eye exam with an optometrist can check for other issues that could be making vision-related tasks such as reading difficult or uncomfortable for a child.

3. Don’t Let Digital Eye Strain Impact Your Work

A lot of us have jobs that require us to spend most of the day looking at a computer screen, and this can lead to eye strain, with symptoms such as blurred vision, dry eyes, and headaches. Regular eye exams are a great way to make sure you have the right tools to fight back against eye strain.

4. Keep Those Prescriptions Up-To-Date!

Our vision changes as we get older and glasses or contacts that used to provide us with perfectly clear vision may gradually become less effective. Don’t subject yourself to months or years of endless squinting. Schedule your next eye exam so you can get new lenses!

5. The Eyes Are The Windows To Overall Health

As important as it is to have eye exams so as to prevent and diagnose eye diseases as well as keep your prescription current, they’re also a great way to look out for your overall health. The eye doctor is often the first person to spot the signs of diabetes, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, and even cancer, all from a routine eye exam.

Come to Goodlife Pharmacy, Westlands Arcade and get your eyes tested today!