the vision test of the eye exam the refraction can be pretty stressful but i'm going to give
you my 10 tips to make sure that you get the best glasses prescription or contact lens prescription
possible let's focus in tip number one and that's to blink it can be really easy to forget to blink
when you're staring at the letters trying to focus on the letters your eyes will dry out in fact they
might dry out so much that your eyes will actually start to water and it can definitely affect the
results of the prescription so try and remember your best to blink tip number two and this can
be a big one your eye doctor should test one eye at a time and they'll cover the other eye for you
now the temptation here will be for you to cover your own eye by squeezing your eyelid down but
that can actually change your vision for a little bit it actually can change the shape of the cornea
just by that squeezing motion and so when the eye doctor goes to test that other eye you'll open the
eye and realize hey my vision is actually a little bit extra blurry so if you can help it try not
to cover your own eye the eye doctor should do that for you tip number three and that's to not
squint it can be really tempting to try and squint through the lenses to see the letters but remember
if you're squinting through this you're likely going to squint through your new pair of glasses
so remember don't squint tip number four can be a really easy one and that's to try and keep your
head straight sometimes you might get relaxed and start tipping your head if you naturally do that
in life but if you do that that might change the results of the prescription so try and keep your
head nice and straight level with the phoropter tip number five and this is just to be aware
that this could happen if you have a really long eyelashes or mascara on your eyelashes and you
are really pushed up really close to the lenses in there your eyelashes could rub on that lens
and actually smudge or smear up the lens making it extra blurry no matter what you do if you
pick number one pick number two it's not going to matter because the vision is going to be blurry
same thing with wearing a mask sometimes that mask can actually fog up the lens in there
same thing happens when you're actually wearing glasses the mask will fog up your glasses
or if you're not wearing a mask it can also happen just by getting really close to the lenses
it can still fog up so don't feel bad every once in a while if you're curious you can actually sit
back take a look at those lenses just to make sure they're not smudged or fogged up and make
sure that you're looking through clear lenses now your doctor should be able to know or get a
clue that maybe you're looking through a smudged lens i know i do every once in a while i'll just
check the lens and make sure we're not looking through some kind of foggy lens or anything
but again just be aware of that and don't feel bad to check the lenses every once in a while now
a lot of these tips your eye doctor should help you through it they should help you not to squint
remind you to blink keep your head straight but just in case if your doctor misses something
these tips should help and if they are helping if you're learning something new definitely hit that
like button for me tip number six and that's to concentrate on the two options that your doctor
just gave you when the doctor gives you option number one or number two try and focus on those
two options now those two options actually might be blurry and that's okay just try and pick the
best one out of those two in fact you might have had a clear option four or five times ago and
that's okay as well there's a few times when we're testing the eyes especially when we're looking for
astigmatism that both options might be blurry and you're just trying to pick the best one that's
okay completely normal don't worry about that just try and concentrate on the two options that you
were given and that leads me into tip number seven now both of your options might be nearly identical
they might look really good both options might look great and that actually can worry a lot of
people it might stress a lot of people out because they want to pick the best one they want to pick
the right answer but just to fill you in a little bit we're actually trying to get to that point as
an eye doctor we're trying to get to that point where both options of lenses that we're showing
you look really good and look nearly identical that's actually a good thing in our eyes so if you
get to an option where both of them look the same you can answer hey they look the same i can't tell
a difference that's perfectly fine i actually like that answer a lot so don't worry tip number seven
both might look good and both of them are good tip number eight is along the same lines if you
are confused if you had the two options and you weren't quite sure which one was the better one
feel free to tell the doctor to repeat those same two options i actually love it when patients say
that if they say repeat i wasn't sure i like to double check and just to make sure that they're
going to pick the right option for them so don't hesitate don't feel bad to ask your doctor to
repeat those same options because it can really help and we just want you to feel comfortable tip
number nine and that's actually to bring in your previous glasses prescription now your eye doctor
won't need it to get an accurate prescription but sometimes it's kind of nice to know if there was
actually a change from your previous prescription it's nice to know how long it's been and
what kind of change you actually did have or if you have your previous contact lens prescriptions
kind of nice to know what brand of contact lens you've been wearing especially if you like them
tip number 10 and that's to always communicate with your doctor there are a few things that
i actually like to hear from my patients number one is if they're noticing the text that they're
looking at is all sudden becoming smaller and darker or smaller and bolder i definitely want
to know that because that could mean that we're overpowering the eyes and we don't want to do that
the other one is that they're noticing if there's shadows coming off of the text that
they're looking at that could mean that there's some astigmatism that we need to correct for
speaking of astigmatism most common question that i get definitely check out my video explaining
about astigmatism and now that you have the best prescription glasses possible learn how and what
the best ways are to clean your glasses i'm Dr. Neal Guymon, Dr. EyeGuy, stay focused