Many people recognize the importance of routine visits to their family doctor or dentist. The same mindset applies to vision care as well! Routine eye exams are a vital component of maintaining healthy vision and eyes.
We often see questions about the time commitment of this visit. While any time spent at your optometrist’s clinic is worth the investment, the overall duration of your appointment depends on your age, vision needs, health status, and the type of eye exam you require.
As a general rule:
- Standard routine eye exams can take 20–30 minutes
- A contact lens exam can take 30 minutes to 1 hour
- A diabetic eye exam can take up to 1 hour or longer
Routine exams are an opportunity to preserve your eyesight and safeguard your overall eye health!
A Routine Eye Exam: A Comprehensive Overview
A routine eye exam is more than just a tweak to your glasses or contact lens prescription. It’s a full health checkup for your eyes, a proactive step that can help you prevent and manage concerns before they become bigger issues.
During a routine eye exam, your optometrist will test your vision and evaluate the overall health of your eyes. The assessment can help gauge changes to your prescription while detecting problems early, like glaucoma or general health conditions (often before symptoms arise), improving management outcomes.
Most routine eye exams can last between 20 to 30 minutes, depending on factors like:
- Age, as eye health needs change over time
- Kids’ eye exams may be shorter & focused on developmental milestones
- Senior eye exams often assess age-related conditions like macular degeneration
- Vision history, so your eye doctor knows your unique concerns
- A history of eye conditions, surgery, or changes in your prescription may require additional testing
- Health status, as your overall health & eye health are connected
- Underlying conditions like diabetes or high blood pressure may require a deeper look at your retinal health
Eye Exams by Age
Although everyone benefits from routine eye exams, the structure and frequency of these visits vary depending on your age.
Children (6 months to 18 years)
Since children’s eyes are growing, annual eye exams help monitor visual development and detect concerns, like myopia (nearsightedness) or amblyopia (lazy eye), early for proper management. Children can have their first eye exam as young as 6 months old!
Adults (19 to 64 years)
Most adults can get by with eye exams every 2 years, depending on risk factors such as a family history of eye disease or high prescriptions.
Seniors (65+ years)
Older adults benefit from annual exams because of age-related visual changes and eye conditions.
A Contact Lens Exam: What to Expect
Even if you’re already a contact lens pro, annual contact lens exams are non-negotiable, no matter your age. Since contact lenses sit directly on the eyes, they require greater care, maintenance, and monitoring than glasses.
A contact lens exam requires further testing from a standard exam to confirm your lenses fit properly, feel comfortable, and meet your vision correction needs, especially because your contact lens prescription differs slightly from an eyeglass prescription.
Expect a contact lens exam to last around 30 minutes to 1 hour. Your visit includes:
- Measuring the shape & size of your eye
- Assessing the tear film to promote comfort
- Wearing trial lenses to test comfort, fit, & clarity
When it’s your first time wearing contact lenses, your optometrist will guide you through contact lens training. You’ll learn how to safely insert, remove, and care for your contacts. The contact lens training alone can take up to an hour.
A Diabetic Eye Exam & Beyond: A Full Health Workup
Although routine eye exams include assessing the overall health of your eyes, certain general health conditions, like diabetes, require a more in-depth evaluation.
The need for annual diabetic eye exams stems from the fact that the eyes are highly sensitive to changes in blood sugar levels, which can lead to severe complications if left unmanaged.
People with type 1 or type 2 diabetes should have an annual diabetic eye exam, even if they’re not experiencing any vision concerns. However, managing diabetes through medication and lifestyle changes can help reduce the risk of developing diabetic eye disease.
A diabetic eye exam focuses on detecting and monitoring eye health and visual complications caused by diabetes, such as diabetic retinopathy, macular edema, glaucoma, or cataracts.
One of the main components of a diabetic eye exam is dilating the eyes (which can take up to 20 minutes). These drops widen the pupils, allowing your optometrist to get a wider view of the retina, optic nerve, and blood vessels to look for any diabetes-related complications.
Beyond dilation, additional tests may include:
- Visual acuity test to check how well you can see with or without corrective lenses & help determine an accurate prescription
- Optical coherence tomography (OCT) to create detailed scans of the retina & surrounding structures to help detect diabetes & eye damage
- Optos ultra-wide retinal imaging to capture high-definition images of the back of the eye & help detect early signs of eye disease & other health conditions
- Tonometry to noninvasively measure internal eye pressure, helping to screen for glaucoma
Depending on the specific tests, a diabetic eye exam can take around an hour, with the dilation process taking up much of this waiting time. If further testing, like a glaucoma screening, is required, this might extend the appointment slightly.
Healthier Vision Is Within Reach
Any time spent at your optometrist’s office is an investment in your overall health. Beyond correcting your vision, eye exams can even reveal early clues about other health conditions like diabetes and high blood pressure. Early detection empowers you to take action sooner.
If it’s time for your eye exam, Vancouver Block Optometrists is here to help. Whether it’s your first visit or you’re overdue for a checkup, we’ll help you see clearly and confidently. Book your eye exam today and take the first step toward healthier vision!