Why You Should Consider an Annual Wellness Scan: The Benefits of Early Detection

Your health changes every day as the environment, the food you eat, and the things you do impact your body. Some things that affect your health have been doing so for years, and their effects take years to manifest. 

Some start to affect you within seconds of using them, like cigarettes, while others accumulate, like insulin resistance. Because of this, it is essential to have an annual wellness scan to detect some conditions early on.

What Is an Annual Wellness Scan?

The best healthcare is preventive, and an annual wellness scan is one preventative measure to stay ahead of conditions. It consists of several tests that help doctors detect any underlying conditions affecting you. 

It is a great way to identify diseases in their early stages before they become advanced. Insurance policies often cover one wellness exam yearly but sometimes only pay for specific exams. 

While these are great, they can sometimes be expensive, especially if you have to pay medical lab expenses. A comprehensive eye exam is one way to ensure you have a good look at your health without invasive tests. 

How Does an Eye Exam Help?

Doctors often refer to the eye as the window to the body because they can tell a lot about your health from your eyes. This is because the eye is the only body part where a doctor can look inside your body without cutting you open. 

The eye doctor can study the health of your blood vessels through the pupil of your eye. The tiny blood vessels in the eye can show symptoms of systematic conditions while not fully manifest. Tests for these conditions can be expensive and may not be possible before certain stages. 

What Are the Benefits of Early Detection?

Early detection is critical because it ensures that treatment and management of a condition can begin before any significant damage happens. Many systemic diseases are much easier to deal with if managed early. It can also help curtail the damage these conditions cause to the body and the various organs. Some of the conditions that an eye exam can help identify are:
 

• Diabetes
   

Diabetes affects the body in several ways, but it can significantly impact the eyes by causing conditions that can lead to loss of eyesight. It usually affects the health of blood vessels in the eye, causing the leaking of fluids and blood into the eye. It can drive two primary eye conditions, diabetic retinopathy and diabetic macular edema.
 

• Brain Tumor

Brain tumors can develop silently and cause no visible symptoms or any you can feel. However, it can cause intracranial pressure that affects the eyes and is easily identifiable through an eye exam. 
 

• Heart Disease

Signs of heart disease can show up in the eye before you get any other symptoms. These usually show up when you have an eye stroke as microscopic marks in the eye. These are normal in healthy people but are in higher numbers in people with heart disease.
 

For more on why you should consider an annual wellness scan, visit Brandon Eyes at our office in Middleton or Madison, Wisconsin. Call (608) 833-7256 or (608) 833-0301 to book an appointment today.