Elmquist Eye Group Eye Care in Fort Myers

Your eyes and your eyesight are precious, so don’t forget to take regular care of your vision to keep your eyes healthy. Elmquist Eye Group provides the best eye care in Fort Myers. Here are a few of the reasons why you should trust your vision to our eye care professionals.

First, we offer an extremely comprehensive eye examination; these are important to have annually, or even more frequently if you have certain conditions. Our doctors often detect diseases like diabetes, macular degeneration, and glaucoma during an eye exam. Patients are surprised because they did not have any symptoms.

Eye Diseases

Let’s use glaucoma as an example. More than four million Americans have glaucoma, but only half of those affected even know they have it. Although people usually do not have symptoms, glaucoma is a very serious disease that can cause blindness. Macular degeneration is another serious condition that is the leading cause of vision loss in people over the age of 60.

To detect these diseases, Elmquist doctors conduct a very thorough dilated eye exam to look at the eye structures and surrounding blood vessels. With these examinations, we can detect glaucoma, macular degeneration and many more eye conditions. Because you will have temporary blurred vision and sensitivity to light following the dilated eye exam, we ask that a family member or friend accompany you to the appointment so that they can drive you home after the exam.

Diabetic Eye Exams

Unfortunately, diabetes is the number one cause of blindness in the United States. Did you know that people with diabetes are 25 times more likely to lose vision than those who are not diabetic? As soon as you’ve been diagnosed with diabetes, you need to have a dilated eye exam at least once a year. At Elmquist Eye Group, we perform a thorough retinal exam through dilated pupils to check for any diabetic complications including diabetic retinopathy.

Everyone who has diabetes is at risk for developing diabetic retinopathy, but not all diabetics will develop it. In the early stages, you may not notice any change in your vision. This is why annual exams are recommended even when symptoms are not present. Diabetic macular edema can lead to significant vision loss, but we can easily detect it with a scan of the macula using Optical Coherence Tomography (OCT) technology. This scanning device is available in our Fort Myers office and is used to further evaluate patients with diabetic retinopathy.

Changes in glucose levels increase your risk of diabetic retinopathy, as does long-term diabetes. Diabetes can damage the blood vessels in your eyes, causing them to leak, which can in turn cause vision loss.

According to the American Academy of Ophthalmology, the large majority (95 percent) of people with significant diabetic retinopathy can avoid substantial vision loss if they are treated in time.

You can trust our experienced team at Elmquist Eye Group for all your eye care needs in Fort Myers. Give us a call today so we can start treating you as our next new patient.