Get your eyes tested

One ophthalmologist is strongly encouraging people to get their eyes tested as regularly as possible.

During a public lecture titled “Glaucoma, the silent killer” that took place at the Bush Hall Community Resource Centre recently, Dr. Delores Griffith, consultant ophthalmologist, urged people to regularly get their eyes screened and tested.

Griffith explained that the optic nerve in the eye gets damaged over time and once this damage occurs it cannot be reversed and there is no cure.

It is against this backdrop that Griffith urged persons to get tested regularly so that any damage to the optic nerve could be caught in the early stages before it got too bad.

“I find that men are afraid to be told what is wrong with their eyes, they just don’t want to know. And I find that people only go to the eye specialist when there is a problem. However, glaucoma is an issue that has to be dealt with preventatively. You don’t just wait until you can’t see, you go before there’s actually a problem,” she said.

“You need to go and have the pressure in your eyes measured. We need to normalise the testing. It is important for persons to at least have their eyes examined at least once in their lifetime.”

She noted that before she would have encouraged persons from the age of 40 to frequently get tested, however, in recent times, she reported that more and more younger people are developing glaucoma, especially if there is a family history of it.

She went on to list other risk factors that included age, gender, race and weight, adding that males were more predisposed to developing glaucoma.

Additionally, she noted that eye pressure was the most modifiable way of managing glaucoma once a person was diagnosed with it.

“So testing is crucial. At least once in your lifetime you should have your eyes examined; at least a baseline test. You should follow up on what is found and after you reach the age of 40 get tested every two years, and after 65 every year,” she said.