“Awe doc, do you have to dilate my eyes”

Why your eye exam should be viewed as a medical visit instead of a means to get eyeglasses

When you go to your medical doctor appointment, rightfully, you should expect the most thorough exam. In order to deliver a thorough exam and diagnosis, the majority of doctors choose to order additional tests and blood work to correctly diagnose your problem. Likewise, when you go to the eye doctor, they also need to perform additional tests to provide additional data in diagnose and treat an eye condition. The most common “test” your eye doctor completes is called the pupillary dilation (dilation of the pupils), which is included in the cost of your eye exam. It the only way to view a choroidal melanoma , or other ocular tumor in the location you see in the picture below. Melanoma doesn’t always exist in the central part of the retina, which is the only part of the retina that is seen undilated. The picture below is of a 25 year old, healthy Caucasian with no symptoms, no history of ocular trauma, who exhibits perfect uncorrected vision. In fact, people who are between 20-30 years old tend to offer the greatest resistance to the procedure we call the dilation. It is simply because they have no symptoms or complaints. Often, by the time these types of tumor cause symptoms, it must too late to save vision or even the eye. Read that again: you permanently lose vision in that eye. Can you imagine your world without the sight in one eye? For people who routinely obtain annual eye exams with dilation, you are expressing your right to early prevention, which in most cases has better prognostic results. Please tell your adult children and your grandchildren that an eye exam is more than just getting eyeglasses or contact lenses. If you are not old enough to have adult children, please schedule your children for their eye exam with dilation. Very few patients request a dilation. Surprisingly, very few patient realize that their health insurance will cover a medical eye examination. You do not have to have vision coverage to have an eye examination. Call your health professional and the office team can help you determine what your health coverage is.

The lighter structure in the center is the optic nerve and darker area to the right of that is the macula. Far above and to the right of the normal structures of the eye is a choroidal melanoma, showing slight elevation.