7 Eye Exam Tips for Better Vision, Glasses and Overall Experience

If you are heading in for your eye exam, it can often be overwhelming and many people stress out about the eye and vision test. In this video, Dr. Allen shares 7 tips to help you prepare for your eye test. If you are going in for your first eye exam, the overall important thing is to not stress about it and try to relax. Some people will try very hard to cheat and perform better on their vision testing but this can often work against them, making the test take longer and resulting in people second guessing themselves.

The eye exam for glasses (called a refraction) is often a major source of concern for people. The best tip I can give you is to try not to split hairs over the options. If the two lens options are tough to tell the difference, then tell your eye doctor or whoever is performing the procedure know that the two options look the same. This is in fact a favorable result. If your eye doctor needs to show you more options to fine tune your glasses prescription, they will do so.

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Timestamps:
0:00 Eye Exam Tips
0:30 How to take the vision test
1:04 The Better 1 or 2 test
1:56 The Eye Pressure Test
2:38 Medical and Vision Insurance Cards
2:59 Your Medication List
3:26 Glasses and Contact Lens Prescription
4:09 Dilated Eye Exam

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About this video: Have you had an eye test this year? If you are heading in for your eye exam, it can often be overwhelming and many people stress out about the eye and vision test. In this video, Dr. Allen shares 7 tips to help you prepare for your eye test.

#eyeexamtips #eyeexam #doctoreyehealth

[DoctorEyeHealth]

Which tip was your favorite? Any other tips you would share to others getting their exams?

[pedropartida]

I have been a tech for 36 years. Here is my tip. Stop calling them tests, phoroptor, IOP, . Start calling them measurements. Test imply to the patient they are going to pass or fail. also I tell them don’t strain and relax cause if you strain and focus behind the phoroptor they will do the same with glasses.

[omigawdd]

The "one or two" tip is nice. I've been wearing corrective lenses for at least 20 years and I still get nervous about picking which is better. Often times they seem the same but my mind tells me I need to pick only one.

[justhavingfun]

I practiced optometry for 39 years and everything Dr. Allen outlined is absolutely true and helpful to the process of good eye care. Thumbs up!

[joannab]

My favorite tips were the glaucoma test "relax" tip and the pro tip about the "better 1 or 2" test. Didn't know that stuff! Thank you so much. I will pass this on to friends and family.

[mannymotta]

Thank you for the video. Some other good advice is make sure your eye doctor is addressing your concerns. I’d been going to the same guy for 25 years. He is an ophthalmologist that everyone in the family goes to and supposedly a great surgeon. I’m 55 years old and for the past 4-5 years, I had times when I couldn’t focus properly. This happened at night when my eyes were tired or when I’d look in the rear view mirror and then back to the road, it would take a split second to refocus. These problems were never addressed. I changed doctors. The new doctor is awesome. Told me the pores in my eye lids were clogged up so we fixed that. Then he sent me to a strabismus ( eye muscle doctor) to address the intermittent focus problem. 3.5 base out prism’s took care of that. Turns out I have divergent insufficiency ( esotropia) . That did the trick. Moral of the story…. If you feel that your doctor is striving to really help you… change doctors. It took me 4-5 years of suffering which was my own fault to say enough was enough.

[giorgiatesi]

As someone with -12 and -14 and glaucoma, it's so endearing to me to see so many people talk about their experiences and find out about these kind of things. Keep up the good work

[kathrynmettelka]

My favorite tip is dilation. I bring my husband with me because my eyes are so sensitive to sunlight after the exam that I prefer to have someone else drive me home.
I am happy to have dilation because my family has a history of glaucoma and a close friend was just diagnosed with macular degeneration. Eye doctors are often the ones to detect diabetes. If I have a problem, I want it diagnosed asap.

[marymckay]

My “favorite” test is that one for peripheral vision. The one with the grey wavy lines that appear briefly and you’re supposed to click the button. It’s soooo long and my attention wanders.
My tip is if you get new glasses and they just don’t seem right, speak up. My doctor tweaked my astigmatism correction but the right eye seemed blurry. I brought in an old pair of glasses which they compared and adjusted my new ones. Much better!

[miriamzajfman]

I do wear glasses for most of my life, just now you did explain to me the procedure of a eye exam . Thanks ! 👍 it is very helpful . In the " better one or two test " I felt that I was doing something wrong since there was never much of a difference 🤭

[duchessofeire]

My tip is on the visual field test. I always failed the second eye and had to be rechecked until I started taking a minute or two between eyes to relax. It makes the test a lot easier on the second half.

[JennyG.COW]

Some of these things I wish I knew about, such as squinting at the screen before I was given the pinhole.

I am glad that my eye exam was with an in-network Opthamologist and I was able to get all the pre-check-in completed before my appointment! 😊

Before this exam, I read up on what to expect, so I was more mentally prepared, even if I was a little nervous for my first ever exam.

I was also given some water so that I could take sips which helped me stay calm and cool during the numbing process for the dilation.


Thanks so much for sharing this information with us!
It's so awesome that people like you can always help teach us! And for Free too! 😊❤️

[oleeotv]

Tips 1 and 2 FTW. Thank you. On 8 weeks of changing glasses because of challenges getting my glasses to work with my astigmatism, new assessment next week, I will be looking to be relaxed with the refraction test and if they get smaller and darker I will know it's worthwhile to say something. Appreciate that others can get nervous too, never occurred to me to mentally prepare for an eye exam until I realized I was tense last year.

[jeffstone]

Very good tips. Thanks! I'm going to add one that I wish I didn't have to add. I have an annual exam at a practice that has several ophthalmologists and other staff that do the refraction first. A couple of times, I didn't have confidence in the person doing the refraction and didn't like the result of my prescription either. The next year, a new person did it and I was very pleased with the result. I specifically requested her the following year and luckily, she was available and again, she did an excellent job. Yes, all staff should be equally capable and competent but I found that was not the case where I go. The ophthalmologists themselves at this practice, I like a lot, but it's their supporting staff that is variable. So my tip is, if you like the way a specific person did your refraction, don't be afraid to ask for them the next time you have an exam.

[penamatuu]

Love how he gets straight to the point. I had no interest in even watching because *I been wearing contacts for years now so whats there to learn* however I can gladly say thank you I learned something new today. Thank you for sharing your knowledge. God bless

[kenjd]

I don’t get anxious but I would get excited if my eye doctor was as visually stunning as you! The most helpful tip was the eye glasses exam and telling the examiner which lens is clearer or if they are the same or if the letters became smaller and darker. Thanks for the tips. 😎

[eyeballs]

had a smile on my face when you demonstrated the 1 or 2 part of the subjective..the retinoscopy lenses were still in the phoropter..might have done that once or twice in my 36 years in practice..overall good video. The refractionist really does control the exam and looks for consistency or inconsistencies in the 1 or 2 part...so don't worry about getting the right answer folks

[otiebrown]

My favorite;
At home, have permanent Snellen.
( Protect against ovef minus prescription)
Verify passing the DMV.
Then, never accept any "minus " PRESCRIPTION.
It is possible to go from 20/50, to 20/20, by wearing a plus lens, for all close work, during the school years.
I also measure using my own tesf lenses.
This saves me endless arguments with ODs about doing the right thing for my life time vision.

[nikkis]

Thank you for these tips!! I don’t think I’ve ever been able to do the glaucoma test before. Every year they try over and over and I blink every time and they eventually seem to give up after so many tries.😩 I’ll definitely be relaxed as possible now, maybe that was it. I was telling myself “dont blink. Don’t blink. Don’t blink.” Lol!

[srajo]

Thanks for the tip for the better 1 and 2. One tip my eye doctor usually gives me before having the eye exam is having a good night sleep before taking the exam.