What Does 20-20 Vision Mean?

Vision is very important to us. Everyone desires 20/20 vision. Some patients say that they don't want 20/15 vision but prefer 20/20. This statement will appear hilarious when you have read and understood this article.

We all want great vision. Why? So that we can have a competitive advantage. In prehistoric times it gave us the edge to see the wild animals earlier. As society became more organized a method of comparing vision was needed. The credit for the most commonly used method goes to Snellen. Hence the chart which displays the letters or numbers bears his name. It compares a person's vision to the that of the average for the population.

20/20 means that the person whose vision is being tested is normal. If the vision is 20/40 it means that a normal person can see the object at 40 feet away whereas the patient being tested has to go much closer than this to 20 feet before he can see as well. That implies that the test subject has poorer vision. If it is 20/200 than the vision is even worse. Conversely 20/15 means that the test subject can see an object from even further than a normal person. He can see at 20 feet what a normal would see at only 15 feet. 20/10 vision is even better. Lots of professional athletes have vision that is better than 20/15!

What's YOUR vision? Come on in for a vision exam at Skyvision Centers and find out!

100% Satisfied

How about that?! 100% of our new patients at SkyVision in the month of May were satisfied with their SkyVision experience. In fact, 99.5% were either very satisfied or EXTREMELY satisfied!

We survey all of our new patients every day to see how their SkyVision Centers experience went. It's very important to us that we not only provide the very best eye care possible, but we also want our patients to have a wonderful experience in the process. We ask each new patient if they would refer friends and family to see us for all of their eyecare needs. In May 90% of our new patients said that they would look for opprotunities to bring up their SkyVision experience so that they could send friends and family to see us!

From the very outset Dr. Darrell White, Dr. Scott Schlegel, and Dr. Gregory Kaye have been striving to create a real, true patient-centered experience. Most medical practices of all kinds are actually built around the needs of the doctors. At SkyVision Centers we think that might be backwards--everything should be centered on our patients. Each of us spends time every day monitoring your experience, from waiting time to inusurance processing, to making sure that you are getting exactly the right care for your particular needs.

So thank you for all of your kind words and your wonderful reviews. We DO want to hear from you directly, not only to tell us how nice your experience was, but definitely also when you think there might be something that we can do better! Here's hoping June is just as successful!

Debunking Eye Myths*

How many times have you heard someone tell you something about your eyes or your vision that made you scratch your head? Something that you've heard a thousand times and always wondered about? Us too!

Let's look at a couple and see how they stack up to reality:

1) "Don't sit so close to the TV; you'll ruin your eyes!"

FALSE! It turns out that this one was never true. There has never really been anything harmful coming out of a TV screen, at least as far as your eyes go. People have been sitting closer to the TV for decades just to see better. Kids have a natural tendency to do this. It doesn't necessarily mean that you need glasses, and sitting closer definitely won't hurt your eyes or your eyesight. Cable TV might rot your brain...

2) "Don't read in the dark; it'll make your eyes weak!"

FALSE! Reading in dark or dim light just makes reading harder, but it doesn't do any harm to your eyes or your vision. Heck, Abe Lincoln used to read by candlelight as a kid, and HE turned out alright!

3) "If you wear your reading glasses you'll just need to wear them more."

TRUE and FALSE. Once you hit your 40's almost everyone starts to lose the ability to focus up close due to a combination of hardening of the lens in your eye and decreased strength in your focusing muscles. You will need more help with reading glasses or bifocals in time no matter what, but fighting against them by forcing yourself to focus can make you need them a little less for a little longer. Use 'em or don't, whichever makes you more comfortable.

4) "Give your eyes a break, you're gonna wear them out!"

FALSE. Your eyes are different from a muscle like your biceps. You can't wear them out. Go ahead and use them!

5) "If you don't stop it, you'll go blind".

WHOA! Wait a minute. This is a PG-rated blog! :-)

*Props to Dr. Carey Silverman for the idea.