Flex Your Eye Muscles

This post was sponsored by Think About Your Eyes as part of an Influencer Activation for Influence Central. I received compensation as a thank you for my review

Physical fitness is easy to remember (hit up that gym, get that yoga class in, etc) but are you flexing your eye muscles by remembering your eye health and annual exam?

I've worn glasses since I was in the third grade. I'm now so near sighted that I almost reach the textbook definition of legally blind. But even for me, a woman who depends on her glasses and contacts, it's hard to remember to schedule my annual eye exam! I'd cut off a toe before I missed my favorite yoga class, but flexing my eye muscles and heading to get these big browns checked out? That's challenging.

Think About Your Eyes, a national public awareness campaign, is trying to urge slackers like me to focus more on our eye health. Heck, they're trying to raise awareness for everyone, even if you're diligent about your annual exam! The group surveyed people like me, gym rats members of a national gym chain and found that despite being on point with our physical fitness, we're all very likely to not flex our eye muscles and skip our annual eye exam. Even health conscious people are bad about this! At least I'm in good company... ? Just check out these stats:

Here's the thing though. In early April, I ran out of contacts. I even stretched out my "monthlies" to be more like "6 weeks-lies" and then tried to call for more contacts. No way, the office told me, you haven't been seen in two years! Get in here and get checked. So I went in and found a whole new set of technology was available! I was able to get special images done of my eyes and learned that I'm so nearsighted and my eyeball is so long, I'm at an increased risk for a retinal tear. I also learned that me extending my contact "expiration date" was aging my eyes and contributing to my retinal tear risk! Not even kidding, she took one look at my eyes through some fancy machine (I'm really well read on all those fancy medical terms, huh?), and before I could even confess that I wear my contacts far past the point that I should, my doctor was able to guess it! And then scolded me, like she should have.

Because of that appointment, my doctor was able to discuss with me the warning signs of the tear and when I should make an appointment vs. when I need to go to the emergency room immediately. I had no idea about any of this! I'm 31 years old, why would I even consider something like that, right? That right there friends demonstrates the importance of your annual exam. Even if you have perfect vision (like my sister, who got all the good eye genes), they might find something that you need to monitor, or discover something in your family history that puts you in a different risk group.

Your eye sight is a big deal. You lose it, and your life will NEVER be the same! So why are people (and by people, I mean me too) so bad about making that appointment? Don't have an optometrist? Think About Your Eyes created a handy Doctor Locator tool to make it easy for you! Please make sure you're flexing those eye muscles and getting your annual eye exam done. Your eyes will thank you for it.