Understand Why Child Eye Problems Can Go Undiagnosed

Kids are much less likely than adults to recognize that the problems they’re having are because their eyes aren’t working properly. This means they can’t describe what they’re experiencing to adults. Such children will continue to struggle with an undefined obstacle. They might become distracted and fidgety, and an adult might scold them for it, which only makes things worse. All they know is they’re being scolded for not doing as well as their peers, even if they’re trying their hardest.

Healthy eyesight is hugely important to a child’s development and education.

As much as 80% of all learning is visual, and it’s estimated that more than half of childhood learning difficulties come from undiagnosed vision problems. What can parents do to ensure their kids don’t have to struggle with the social and educational disadvantages of an undiagnosed vision problem?

Vision Problems a School Nurse Might Miss

Inability of children to self-report isn’t the only reason a vision problem might go undiagnosed. Another big one is that many of them don’t receive comprehensive eye exams before starting school. School nurses will test students’ visual acuity using the big E chart, but healthy eyesight is a lot more complicated than having 20/20 vision. Here are some vision problems the school nurse will miss:

• Astigmatism. Refractive errors that cause blurry vision but which aren’t always caught in a vision screening. Can lead to amblyopia if not treated with corrective lenses.
• Amblyopia. Also known as “lazy eye,” this means poor vision in one eye due to astigmatism, a difference in refractive errors between the two eyes, or crossed eyes. Can result in irreversible vision loss without treatment.
• Convergence Insufficiency. The eyes drift outward when trying to focus on up-close things, making reading and other close tasks difficult.
• Strabismus. A misalignment of the eyes where they turn out, in, down, or up. Can be corrected by patching, special glasses, or surgery.

Signs Parents Should Watch For

Certain symptoms of child eye problems are very obvious to an observer, like an eye pointing in the wrong direction or frequent squinting. Others need more careful observation. Here are a few signs that would merit a comprehensive eye exam (though we recommend them no matter what):

• Frequent blinking and eye rubbing
• Short attention span, especially for close work
• Difficulty with reading or avoidance of it
• Frequent headaches
• Habit of covering one eye
• Habit of tilting the head to the side
• Tendency to hold reading materials very close to their face
• Difficulty remembering what they just read
• Tendency to lose their place while reading

Why Wait to Schedule Your Child’s Eye Exam?

Every parent wants to give their child the best chance in life, and making sure they don’t have an eye problem that could interfere with their education and development is a big part of that — and one many parents have no way of knowing about! To learn more about eye problems that often go undiagnosed in children, please give us a call!

Healthy eyesight is crucial for a lifelong love of learning!

Maddie was experiencing challenges in school because of the visual condition amblyopia commonly know as lazy eye. Her right eye showed signs of suppression and blurred vision and not working with her left eye. Even though previous doctors did not recognize this condition, her mother wanted a second opinion. She found Levin Eye Care Center because of their success with HTS vision therapy in correcting amblyopia related difficulties without surgery.

Since completing the Vision Therapy program at Levin Eye Care Center, Maddie is more confident in school and displays improved ocular motor skills. Also, she is less frustrated, and able to read at a grade level above her current placement. Comfortable vision is critical to a child’s academic development and maturity. Our in office program combined with HTS Vision Therapy yields amazing progress and enables patients to maintain their gains longer.

Maddie Now Exhibits:

• Improved balance and hand-eye coordination
• Lazy Eye Corrected (Amblyopia)
• Improved Ocular motor skills when reading
• Uses both eyes together
• Reads above grade level

If these symptoms sound familiar, either for you or a child in your life, we can help! Call or text us at 219-659-3050 to schedule an appointment today!

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Give your child the academic advantage with our Vision Therapy program!

Ian was experiencing academic challenges in school with writing, spelling reading, and doing school assignments. He had trouble with focusing at near and external stimuli were overwhelming his senses. His teachers thought that he was experiencing symptoms of dyslexia. However, several of his family friends recommended the Vision Therapy Program at Levin Eye Care Center because of their success in correcting these difficulties with Vision Therapy.

Since enrolling in Vision Therapy, Ian now enjoys reading longer and has more patience when learning.

Ian Now Exhibits:

• Increased patience when doing schoolwork
• Improved Ocular motor skills when reading
• Improved focus when reading
• Enhanced depth perception
• Greater confidence and a better attitude in school

Since completing the Vision Therapy program at Levin Eye Care Center, Ian is more confident in school and displays a positive attitude. Also, Ian is less frustrated, able to control his emotions better, and enjoys more quality time with his family. Comfortable vision is critical to a child’s development and an office and home Vision Therapy program give the best results.

If these symptoms sound familiar, either for you or a child in your life, we can help! Call or text us at 219-659-3050 to schedule an appointment today!

How big of a role does a bright screen play in your nightly routine?

Since the advent of handheld devices that could access the internet, a lot of us have been browsing websites late into the night, our eyes glued to a bright little screen, making sure we haven’t missed any updates before we go to sleep. As optometrists, we can’t endorse this bedtime ritual. Screens emit a lot of blue light, which affects both our internal clocks and our eye health.

The Physics of Visible Light

The range of colors we can see is known as the visible light spectrum, a tiny sliver of the electromagnetic spectrum. Red light is the lowest energy light we can see and violet light is the highest. Below red light is infrared and above violet light is ultraviolet radiation. (Fun fact: the reason the sky and ocean appear blue to us is that blue light scatters more easily than other colors.)

The Impact of Artificial Light on Our Internal Clock

No matter how tech-savvy we are, we can’t change the biology of our eyes. Across all of human history, it’s only been in recent decades that blue light came from anywhere besides the sun. Blue light signals our brains that it’s daytime and we should be awake. When we look at our screens late into the evening, we effectively trick our brains into thinking it’s not bedtime yet.

Turn Off the Blue Lights Before Bed

If you’ve noticed that you don’t feel tired until very late at night or that you struggle to fall asleep once you’re in bed, late-night screen usage probably isn’t helping. We recommend either putting the screens away at least an hour before bed or checking out different screen settings that can reduce the blue light after sundown. This tiny change makes a big difference in quality of sleep as well as your eye health!

When the sun goes down, it signals our bodies that it’s time to sleep. Biologically, we aren’t used to the concept of artificial light, which can be a problem when there’s so much of it around us. When we use our devices before bed, we’re beaming subconscious signals to our brains that it’s not time to sleep yet. Our brains respond by suppressing the release of melatonin, an important neurotransmitter that helps us sleep.

The result is that it takes us longer to fall asleep than it would otherwise and lowers our overall quality of sleep, which feeds into all the negative health effects of sleep deprivation. A great way to avoid all these sleep issues is to simply put our devices away in the hour before we go to sleep. In cases where that isn’t possible, use the night mode function to cut out the blue light.

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Is Blue Light Bad for Eye Health?

Blue light is so close to UV radiation on the electromagnetic spectrum, many optometrists are concerned that it could be similarly harmful to our eyes, potentially increasing the risk of conditions like age-related macular degeneration.

A more immediate concern from blue light exposure is digital eye strain. After hours and hours of looking at a bright screen, our eyes might ache or struggle to focus, and we can even get headaches. Computer glasses and screen filters help make screens easier to look at, but a great trick is the 20-20-20 rule. Every 20 minutes, take a 20 second break to focus on an object 20 feet away.

We Can Answer Your Questions About Blue Light

If you’ve been experiencing symptoms of eye strain and want recommendations or you have other questions about how blue light can impact eye health, we’d love to discuss it with you at our practice! We want all of our patients to have the information they need to keep their eyes healthy.

Give us a call or text 219-659-3050 if you are experiencing negative effects from screen time.  Schedule your appointment today!

Did you know that babies have to learn how to see?

It might seem strange, since using our eyes is something we do automatically all day, but babies need to develop a number of visual skills in order to effectively use their eyes and process what they’re seeing, just like they have to learn how to walk and talk. Parents can be a big help to the child vision development process, particularly by choosing age-appropriate toys.

What a Baby Sees in the First Six Months

An infant’s world is made up of light, shadow, and blurry shapes. They can only effectively focus on things 8-15 inches away — coincidentally the perfect distance to see the face of the person holding them! Over time, they begin to see things more clearly and sharply, and parents can help in several ways:

• Fill their surroundings with color. It takes a few weeks before a baby’s color vision starts to develop, and once it does, they won’t be able to get enough of bright, pretty colors. That’s why they enjoy mobiles.
• Help them get used to tracking movement with their eyes by moving objects in front of them.
• Play peek-a-boo. This isn’t only to make them laugh (even though that already makes it worth doing); it’s a great way of giving them practice focusing their eyes.

The Dramatic Progress in Months 6-12

Hand-eye coordination begins to develop around month six, and parents can help by keeping Baby well supplied with colorful objects to grab and play with. Crawling also helps them learn coordination (which does sometimes come at the price of some bumps on the noggin, since they haven’t learned that their heads don’t stop at their eyes yet).

Months 6-12 are when your baby will get bored of peek-a-boo. The reason they love peek-a-boo so much in the early months is that they don’t understand object permanence yet, so it looks like magic to them, but eventually they figure out the trick: Mom and Dad aren’t blinking out of existence when they’re out of sight, they’re just hiding behind their hands! At this point, you can change the game and start hiding toys under a blanket and challenging them to find them.

Toddlerhood and Advanced Visual Skills

Toddlers gain a lot of coordination when they learn to walk, and playing with balls helps too. Comprehension and balance are big factors in a toddler’s visual skills. When they begin talking, they start putting names to the objects they see, and around age two, they might discover burgeoning artistic talent. Make sure they have access to paper and crayons! Big, interlocking blocks or wooden blocks are also great for toddlers.

Early Childhood Eye Exams

As important as it is to provide the right types of toys and play the right games with your baby, eye exams are critical to the child vision development process. Babies and toddlers lack the words and understanding to communicate to us if something is wrong with their eyesight, so more than anyone else, they need an eye doctor to check for them. This is why we recommend scheduling the first eye exam at six months and another around their third birthday.

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Let’s get your child started on a life of healthy vision together!

Call or Text 219-659-3050 to book your comprehensive eye exam today with our award winning team!

Completing vision therapy has accelerated Tommy’s path to success

Tommy was experiencing trouble in school with focus, reading and playing sports but even with aid from teachers, it was not enough to get him to the levels required for success.

Since enrolling Tommy in Vision Therapy, he can now locate words and perform visual tasks successfully with improved motor skills. Tommy can now cross the midline after completing vision therapy at Levin Eye Care Center. When we move our arm or leg across the middle of our body to perform a task this is crossing the midline.

Tommy Improved:

• Ocular motor skills
• Speed completing schoolwork
• Better focus when playing sports and in school
• Better depth perception
• Improved grades

After completing Vision Therapy at Levin Eye Care Center, Tommy can move his eyes without moving his body and maintain his focus for longer times. Corrected vision is critical to a child’s development, learning processes, and athletics. Tommy’s family made the investment in their child’s future with vision therapy and it will pay off tenfold as he grows into an adult.

If you have a child or adult who has any of these symptoms, we can help! Call or text us at 219-659-3050 to schedule an appointment today!

Frequent headaches could be a symptom of an uncorrected vision problem or dry eye syndrome! That’s right, if you experience a lot of headaches, it would be worth your time to schedule an eye exam.

Digital Eye Strain and Headaches

Thanks to modern technology, we spend hours a day looking at bright screens, and a common price we pay for these fabulous conveniences is digital eye strain. Typical symptoms include blurred vision, tired and aching eyes, difficulty focusing, and — you guessed it — frequent headaches.

Eye strain doesn’t have to come from screens, either. A vision problem like hyperopia (farsightedness), presbyopia (age-related farsightedness), or astigmatism puts a lot of strain on the eye as it attempts to compensate. With astigmatism, the cornea is shaped abnormally, so it bends light in ways it shouldn’t, leading to a lot of squinting. That alone can sometimes contribute to headaches.

With hyperopia and presbyopia, the lens of the eye focuses images a bit behind the retina instead of right against it, which makes nearby objects look blurry. Trying to read small print quickly turns into a headache, sometimes literally. The older we get, the less flexible the lenses in our eyes become and this can happen to people who never needed glasses earlier in life.

The 20-20-20 rule can help Dry Eye and Digital Eye Strain!

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Eye Problems Can Be a Headache for Kids Too

Kids with undiagnosed vision problems are as susceptible to frequent headaches as adults are. That’s just one of many reasons every child should have a comprehensive eye exam with a real eye doctor, not just a school nurse with a big E chart. There could be a vision problem besides basic refractive errors (like nearsightedness or farsightedness) causing them headaches, but kids wouldn’t be able to make that connection for themselves.

The Wonders of a Correct Prescription

The changes in our vision are gradual enough that they’re hard to notice. It might take months or years to really register how much harder it is to see distant details or read up close. Most people who experience headaches related to vision problems simply need an updated prescription for their glasses or contacts! This combined with treatment for dry eye syndrome can help improve patient’s quality of life and productivity at work and school.

When Headaches Are Tied to Sight-Threatening Conditions

One symptom of glaucoma (an eye disease that involves the buildup of pressure against the optic nerve, resulting in permanent vision loss) is headaches, and cataracts can also cause them. Cataracts develop as the proteins in the lens clump together, clouding the vision. Regular eye exams are essential for catching sight-threatening conditions early on.

A Dry Eye Syndrome Exam Is No Headache!

We all have busy schedules and it’s hard to find space for something like an eye appointment, but it’s worth it, especially for anyone suffering frequent headaches with no idea what’s causing them. You can cross eye problems off the list of potential causes by scheduling your next eye exam with the award-winning team at Levin Eye Care Center!

Contact Us Today!