Despite the fact that doctors urge adults between 20 and 40 years of age to have their eyes examined by an opthamologist at least once every five years, less than half of American adults do. In fact, unless they notice significant changes in their eyesight, or already wear eyeglasses, few Americans will ever make an appointment for an eye examination.
Many people with no perceptible eye issues seem to believe that their primary care physicians will notice any possible disorders of the eye during a routine physical exam. To the contrary, primary care physicians, obviously, do not have the necessary equipment to detect even the most common eye disorders. Thus, patients could be suffering from serious diseases of the eye, but they will go undetected because their regular doctors do not give their eyes more than a cursory exam.
The thing is diseases of the eye are not always apparent unless an opthamologist does the eye exam. If a patient has diabetes, the different eye sicknesses, such as glaucoma and cataracts, have been well-documented. Thus, their primary care physicians probably have already recommended specific optomitrists to the patient, and they can actively seek out ways to circumvent or delay symptoms. For example, the patient can be told to eat lots of carrots or pure vitamin A to slow the development eye sickness symptoms.
Under certain circumstances, some eye sicknesses can be pretty much cured via Lasik eye surgery. Of course, the only way to arrive at such a determination is to consult an eye doctor who is trained in identifying and treating eye sicknesses. After all, you only have two eyes, and two eyes are always better than one eye.