Recently my best friend reached out asking how long it takes to adjust to a new prescription, because she’d gotten a new one for the first time in five years and her prescription more than doubled and her depth perception through her new glasses was a big adjustment. After I (gently, nicely) scolded her for waiting so long, I confirmed that it would take her a few days with such a big prescription jump and it was totally normal.
Side note: I realize I’ve written about friends asking me for help and advice a lot. I talk to my two best friends on the phone once a week, we have a scheduled time for a phone call, and over the years I’ve embraced my role as their cool-headed pseudo older sister that they come to for problems big and small.
I have had glasses since I was a little girl, the need for which was discovered in school. My teacher noticed me squinting and struggling to read the board, and recommended I get my eyes checked.
This was something my parents knew I would probably need, since my mom has glasses, as did both her parents. Plus, as a preemie baby, I was in an oxygen tent and doctors told my parents that it could lead to worse eyesight as I got older.
I cannot stress the importance of getting your eyes checked. My husband and I go yearly (my prescription is slightly worse than his, but in the words of our optometrist, “he’s gaining on you”), and I’ve encouraged friends to go every year, especially those with glasses.
And every few months or so, I get to speak to the Ortonville Lions Club about their free children’s eye exam events that they host in the community.
The Lions Club has many national goals and ways they serve, and one of the causes they target is vision impairment and serving the blind. According to lionsclubs.org, their strategic objective in this field is to prevent avoidable blindness and improve quality of life for people who are blind and visionally impaired. Through the Lions KidSight program, they are able to offer vision screening worldwide to children, as well as follow-up care.
“It’s throughout all Lions Clubs throughout the country,” said Liz Rheume, a member of the Ortonville Lions Club.
With the use of a digital camera, borrowed from the Clarkston Lions Club, the Ortonville Lions Club offers several free vision tests for children each year. They use a dark room to be able to dilate eyes naturally, and then use the camera to measure and evaluate the eye.
“It just takes a matter of seconds,” said Rheume. “We are able to print off those results for the parents, so the camera will tell us if it’s a pass, which means that the vision is in good shape developmentally.”
The camera is able to test for several different things in vision, including difference in eye strength, astigmatisms which cause blurred vision, farsightedness, nearsightedness, asymmetrical vision, and unequal pupils, all according to their age range. Then they print out the results to give to parents.
“I tell parents to put it in their medical folder, it’s just good to have,” she said. “If the camera detects and issue, it’ll say ‘refer.’ That means it did detect something, but it doesn’t tell me what it detected, but it’s reflected in the sticker with the measurements. We advise them to see an eyecare professional and bring that with them, because the eyecare professional will understand what those numbers are.”
Rheume said they mostly get passes, but that it’s very accurate when there is an issue.
While the Ortonville Lions Club offers the vision screening several times a year, the Clarkston Lions Club offers it once a month, on the second Saturday of the month, at the Clarkston Independence District Library, and vision screening with the Lions Club is always free.
“I tell parents, you can take your child there every month,” she said. “Things are changing so rapidly as they’re growing, so the sooner you detect something, the sooner you can correct it. Then, if you do go see a professional, you’ll have these numbers documented and be able to see them over time.”
The process is not invasive, and she said they also give out a sucker to make the process more enjoyable for kids.
To stay up to date on vision screenings from the Ortonville Lions Club, check out the community calendar in the Citizen or check out the Ortonville Lions Club on Facebook.