If you have ever looked at a screen for a long time, you know that your eyes can get more tired as the day goes on. But could eye fatigue impact the results of your eye exam? Is there a time of day that’s best to test your eyes?
You want to get your eye exam done right, after all. It is important for catching conditions before they progress and for getting the most up-to-date prescriptions for your vision.
HuffPost asked eye specialists to weigh in if there’s an ideal time of day to do an eye exam. Here’s what they shared:
Morning may be the best time of day if you have a choice.
For the average person, the time of day you do your eye exam is “not terribly significant,” said Dr. Benjamin Bert, an ophthalmologist at MemorialCare Orange Coast Medical Center in Fountain Valley, California.
But he said that if you do feel like your eyes get more tired and drier as the day goes by, doing your exam earlier in the day can lead to more accurate results.
“We know that our eyes get drier as the day progresses. And if the eyes are significantly dry, it can affect the measurements that are taken when trying to get a new prescription for glasses or contact lenses,” Bert said.
“So if you’re someone who tends to feel like their eyes are getting fatigued or getting really tired toward the end of the day, it may be a sign that you have dryness developing,” he continued. “If you’re one of those people who has those tendencies, it would probably be better to do it earlier in the day when you haven’t had quite as much time focusing on reading or on screens.”
Morning may be especially good if you’re worried about glaucoma. When eye specialists check the health of your eyes, one of the factors they are going to check is your eye pressure, because it’s a way for them to screen for the condition.
“Typically for most people, [eye pressure is] the highest in the morning, and then it gets a little bit lower as the day goes on,” Bert said. “So if there’s any question of glaucoma, or if there’s a family history of glaucoma, for those patients in particular, it is important for them to try and have appointments in the morning.”
So if you wake up with major pressure spikes in your eyes in the morning, but you schedule eye exams in the afternoon, “it’s possible to kind of miss those early warning signs” of glaucoma, Bert said.
Ultimately, it’s important to schedule an eye exam ― regardless of timing.
Jill Beyer, an ophthalmologist and a clinical assistant professor at Stanford University School of Medicine, pointed out that morning could be helpful for some people, but any time was still best.
“If you had a wide open schedule, and you feel like you are on the computer a lot, and your vision gets dramatically worse as the day goes on, then it might be worth going in the morning,” Beyer said. “But anytime of day that fits into someone’s schedule I think is the best time.”
Routine annual eye exams are critical for detecting early warning signs of vision loss and certain diseases. That’s why many eye specialists say it’s more important to get scheduled for an eye exam than to worry about what time of day you are doing it.
“In a perfect world, you wouldn’t be staring at the computer for a couple hours prior to going to your eye exam. But anytime you can go is kind of optimal,” Beyer said.
If your eyes are having trouble focusing because you stared at a screen for too long, your provider should be able to work around it or simply reschedule you. “If it’s a real problem, we can have someone come back for it,” Beyer said.
For routine eye exams, Dr. Sunir Garg, a clinical spokesperson for the American Academy of Ophthalmology, said there is no reason morning exams are “better” than at a different time of day. Garg said that even if someone experiences eye strain from electronic devices, it won’t cause their eye shape to change, which is what these examinations depend on.
There are other things you can do to make your eye exam effective.
Beyond scheduling your eye exam for the time that works best for you, eye specialists said there are simple but helpful tips you can do to make your exam much more effective. You should:
Get a good night’s sleep the night before.
Bert said eye specialists want to see “how your eyes are behaving in the standard normal day-to-day fashion,” so showing up extra tired with heavy eyelids is not ideal.
Know that certain health conditions do impact your prescription.
If you are pregnant, don’t be surprised if your health care provider suggests waiting until after childbirth to do an eye exam. Beyer said pregnancy hormones can make your eye prescription fluctuate.
“We often tell people if possible, ‘Let’s wait until after you’ve given birth, and then maybe a month or so after that if it’s not an emergency to get glasses,’ because that prescription could fluctuate as well,” she said.
Beyer also noted that for people with diabetes, “when blood sugar fluctuates, then the glasses prescription can absolutely fluctuate. So having stable blood sugar is really helpful.”
Bring your glasses, eye drops and the exact products you have been using on your eyes.
Don’t just remember the brand of eye product you use ― remember the exact product. Beyer suggests bringing your glasses, contact lens solution, eyedrops, and any eye product that you’re using, because they may have unusual preservatives or something in them that patients are allergic to inside.
“Being able to see what it is they’re using can help us get to what’s causing irritation in their eyes,” Beyer said.
And it’s helpful to bring your previous contacts prescription, especially if you are seeing a new eye doctor, Bert said.
In those cases, “We’d like to know what your prescription was before, because even a big change in your prescription you may not tolerate if it’s too different from your previous prescription,” Bert said. “So sometimes we’ll give like a partial step in the prescription in order to allow it to be tolerable.“
For people who are considering LASIK or PRK, Bert said doctors will want to review at least two years of previous prescriptions to see if your prescription has been stable in order to assess if you’re a candidate for either surgery.
Properly preparing for an eye exam takes a little bit more research, but it can help you not waste yours or your eye specialist’s time.