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Sitting at the beach on a beautiful summer day is a luxury that should be enjoyed. Many of us work 40 hours or more each week and it’s nice to have a few hours on the weekend to lounge near a body of water and catch up on a good book.

Your Saturday mornings all start the same: you grab the novel you’re currently reading, a cool beverage, your comfy lounge chair and you’re ready to roll. You arrive at the pool, beach or park (wherever you go to relax), sit down and open your book. But something’s not right.

The words and letters on the page look blurry and you’re struggling to make out the first paragraph let alone an entire page. You start thinking maybe it’s just the bright summer sun that’s causing the issue, so you put on your sunglasses and start again. Same problem.

It’s very possible that it’s not the sun or your reading glasses. Nope, you might just need an eye exam and/or a new prescription. Yep, it’s time to schedule an eye exam at Utah Eye Centers and get things straightened out. Our team of friendly, knowledgeable and compassionate doctors boasts years of experience, and they’re here to serve you. Call today to schedule an appointment. They’ll have you back to your summer reading in no time!

You’re staring at one right now. Chances are, you look at them for the majority of your waking hours. We can’t get away from them as more and more creep into our everyday lives.

We’re talking about screens. You know, the tiny smartphone screen you check social media on. The big screen you watch your favorite shows and sports on. The one you use to check your email, do your work, keep track of calendars, budgets, family, friends … oh my! There are screens in our cars. To order food. To tell time. There are screens everywhere.

Nearly one in three U.S. adults say they stare at some type of screen for more than 10 hours per day. Yikes!

So, how can you keep your eyes happy and healthy with all of this screen time? We’re glad you asked! Here are some tips:

Reduce brightness. This seems obvious, but you’d be amazed at how much this simple tweak can help. By reducing the brightness on any screen and making sure that the screen is not the only source of light in the room, you’re lessening the strain on your eyes.

Take a break. Make sure you blink regularly to keep your eyes lubricated, which in turn prevents fatigue. Think about blinking, and you’ll notice a huge difference rather than allowing yourself to blink naturally. And don’t forget to take a break from staring at the screen, too. Look at anything, literally anything, else for at least 20 seconds for every 20 minutes of screen time to give your eyes a much-deserved rest.

Turn it off. Put away your phone for an hour when you’d normally use it. Turn off the TV before getting ready for bed. Simple changes can add up to big changes.

Bifocals are a kind of eyeglass that have a line that separates the lenses into two. If you grew up during the 70s and 80s, you probably saw a lot of people wearing these. Well, you won’t see them very much now. Today people wear progressive lenses, the same as bifocals but without that obvious separating line.

The need for progressive lenses, or bifocals, is caused by the natural aging process and affects almost all of us at some point in our lives. We usually start noticing a change when it’s hard to read the fine print, or you need to take your glasses off and look closer at the words in the book to see them. The eyes are no longer able to focus correctly, which is called presbyopia.

Presbyopia happens because as you age, your eyes’ lenses gradually harden. They’re no longer as elastic as they were when you were young, so they have a harder time focusing on the objects around you, especially on nearby objects.

Presbyopia requires a different type of lens correction than nearsightedness or farsightedness. If you only have nearsightedness or farsightedness, you only need single vision lenses. If you have presbyopia, you need lenses that improve these problems. Bifocals, or multifocal or progressive, lenses have multiple focal points to help.

Bifocals or Progressive?

Most bifocal and multifocal glasses have a dividing line between the different prescriptions in the lens. When you wear them, you look down, or through the bottom lens, to see an object that is close, such as reading a book. When you look up, through the upper half of the lens, you are viewing things at a distance. There is a distinct difference between the two, which takes some time to adjust.

Progressives, on the other hand, do not have a line and are made so that change in prescription is less drastic. You still have two prescriptions, but your vision flows from one to the other more smoothly. Progressives cost a bit more than bifocals do, which could be a factor when choosing between bifocals and progressives.

Talk to your ophthalmologist

If you are having difficulty seeing words up close, and you in your 40s, it may be time to speak to your eye doctor. If you need progressive lenses, they will be able to tell and they can talk to you more about whether bifocals, multifocals and progressives would work best for you.

Schedule an appointment with Utah Eye Centers today and learn from our expert doctors.

When the ophthalmologist looks into your eye, there’s quite a lot they can tell about your overall health. The retina, or back of the eye, is the only place in your body that can give your eye doctor a close-up view of blood vessels and nerves without having to open you up. A routine eye exam can be the key to finding early stages of medical issues.

The following conditions may be detected by an ophthalmologist just by looking at the back of the eye:

High blood pressure

Doctors are able to see damage to blood vessels, including weakened and narrowed arteries. Narrowing of blood vessels could signal heart disease.

Rheumatoid Arthritis (RA)

RA is an inflammatory disease that affects joints in the hands and feet. You should refer to qckinetix.com/gulf-coast/naples-fl/ if you are suffering from RA. Inflammation can happen in the eyes, too. If a patient has painful inflammation in the iris, the colored part of the eyeball, over a year’s time, it could be the sign of RA. Patients with rheumatoid arthritis can also have very dry eyes.

Diabetes

If the doctor sees a small amount of bleeding in the retina, it could be a sign of diabetic retinopathy. This is one of the first signs of type 2 diabetes. Catching this condition early is key to being able to make lifestyle changes that will help prevent further damage. If left untreated, diabetic retinopathy can lead to blindness.

Multiple Sclerosis

Inflammation of the optic nerve, called optic neuritis, could signify this autoimmune condition of the central nervous system. Optic neuritis occurs in 75 percent of patients with MS and is the first symptom of the disease in up to 25 percent of cases. Patients usually complain of blurriness. Optic neuritis could also be the result of an infection, too.

Cancer

Bleeding in the retina can signal leukemia. A change in the field of vision can signal brain tumors, and malignant melanoma can happen in the back of the eye.

A trip to the ophthalmologist’s office can save someone’s life. Are you scheduled for your annual eye exam? Give our experts a call today!