A comprehensive exam runs about 30 minutes and is really three separate checks stitched together — how well you see, how your eyes focus, and whether the eye itself is healthy. Most of the anxiety around exams comes from not knowing what each step is actually checking for, so here's the order we run them in.
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01
History and baseline. Before any equipment, we ask about screen time, family history of glaucoma or macular degeneration, and any symptoms — headaches, night driving difficulty, eye strain. This shapes which of the later tests get extra attention.
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02
Refraction. The "which is clearer, one or two" test. You're not being tested on your answer — the machine is narrowing in on your exact prescription through your responses, the same way an audiologist narrows in on a hearing threshold. There's no wrong answer, only "I'm not sure," which is a perfectly useful answer too.
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03
Eye pressure and the air puff. This one people dread and it's over in about a second. It's checking intraocular pressure, an early indicator of glaucoma — a condition with no symptoms until it's already caused damage, which is exactly why this test matters even if your vision feels fine.
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04
Retinal check. A light examines the back of the eye — the retina, optic nerve, and blood vessels. This is how conditions like diabetic retinopathy or early retinal detachment get caught, often before you'd notice anything yourself.
Why "my vision hasn't changed" isn't a reason to skip it
The refraction test is the one part of the exam checking your prescription. The pressure check and retinal exam are checking eye health, which is unrelated to whether your glasses still feel right. We recommend annual exams for exactly this reason — most of what an exam catches has nothing to do with how sharp things look.
If you wear contact lenses, we also check the fit and surface of the eye separately, since lenses sitting incorrectly can cause irritation you might not connect back to the lenses themselves.