the good old air puff test this is probably the most memorable and the most dreaded
part about getting an eye exam and in this video i'm going to go over
exactly why eye doctors do the air puff test and also give you two alternatives
including my favorite that doesn't include any air and any eye drops let's focus in
hey howdy everybody this is Dr. Neal Guymon, Dr. EyeGuy, with the channel that keeps your
eyes healthy and your vision clear now the reason why eye doctors actually perform the air puff test
is to measure your eye pressure your intraocular pressure the reason why this is so important is
that we're screening for a disease called glaucoma irregular eye pressure can actually put a lot of
stress on the optic nerve of the eye causing damage to the nerve fibers and that will cause
peripheral blind spots eventually tunnel vision and could lead to blindness in fact glaucoma
is one of the leading causes of blindness in the developed world and that's why it's so important
that eye doctors are checking your eye pressure every time you come in for an eye exam and one of
the most common eye pressure measurement tools out there is the air puff test so i'm going to go over
exactly what the air puff test is and also the two alternatives including my favorite first one
on the list is the famous air puff test real name for it is called a non-contact tonometer whereas
the other tools actually make physical contact to the eye they're actually pressing on the cornea
to measure eye pressure this one doesn't make physical contact instead it uses a puff of air
to measure the eye pressure and this is done by measuring how much air pressure it takes to bend
the cornea by a certain amount the more air pressure it takes the higher the eye pressure
the pros to the non-contact tenometer or nct is that it can be a great screening tool it provides
quick efficient and fairly reliable results that can be done at a routine eye exam the obvious
downsides the cons to the nct is that people hate it it can be startling jarring sometimes it can be
tricky to obtain a pressure on young children because they might be afraid of it and really
the worst part about it is the anticipation actually waiting for the air puff knowing
that the air puff is coming and just waiting for the air puff is probably the worst part
another con is if you're actually squeezing your eyelids or holding your breath because
you're nervous about getting the air puff that can actually give us a false high reading for your eye
pressure the next one up is probably considered the gold standard of measuring eye pressure
and it's called the goldmann applanation tonometer this is likely considered one of the more accurate
ways to measure eye pressure and usually when people are talking about other eye pressure
measuring tools they usually compare the results of those with the results of this now this one
does require contact of the cornea you actually press this probe against the cornea and that
pressure is neutralized to obtain the accurate eye pressure measurement now the pros here if
you're trained and skilled to use gatt the results that you get can be a really reliable and accurate
with a large range of different eye pressures now definitely one of the cons because you are
touching the cornea you do need to numb up the eye with a sodium fluorescein type of numbing eye drop
in order to obtain the measurement another cons this can actually be a little bit nerve-racking
to the patient as they watch that probe get closer and closer to their eye knowing that it's actually
going to touch their eye can be a little bit worrisome to the patient also you do need to
use a slit lamp type of microscope to use gat to obtain measurements they also have a handheld
version with the probe on there as well but it can be a little bit tricky to use as a screening
tool just really quick for the statistics of this video i measured my eye pressure 82 times
for this video for you next up on the list and my personal favorite is the icare tonometer
now this has a small magnetized probe and when activated it will come out and tap the cornea
and rebound back and that's actually how it measures eye pressure it measures how fast or how
hard the rebound is and so this is considered a rebound tonometer now here are the biggest pros to
the eye care tonometer you do not need any numbing eye drops at all in fact the probe is so small and
so fast people hardly even feel it the best way i can describe it is it kind of feels like someone
touches or brushes your eyelash so you will blink but you hardly feel anything touching your eye in
fact some people are really shocked after we take the measurement and we tell them that it actually
touched their eye some people don't even believe it another pro is that it doesn't use air so you
don't have the crazy anticipation of air puff or anything blowing in your eye another one is
that you can obtain measurements really fast you can get six measurements within seconds
and that will provide a little bit more accuracy to the results the results from the eye care
tonometer are actually really reliable and can be fairly comparable to the results from gat
as well one of the downsides is that it still has to be close to your eye and so you have to
hold it really close to the patient's eye and you get inside that personal bubble so the patient can
flinch and get a little bit worried also accuracy depends on how accurate or how centered you're
hitting the cornea if you're off a little bit too high too low off to the left or right that
can influence or mess up the results a little bit and so you have to be perfectly centered and on
target to obtain an accurate result i'm curious to know in the comments which one of these three
or a different one did you have at your last eye exam I'm Dr. Neal Guymon, Dr. EyeGuy, stay focused