Seeing beneath the surface is essential to the health of your eyes.
The Science
Ocular Coherence Tomography (OCT) is an advanced eye scan for people of all ages. Similar to ultrasound, OCT uses light rather than sound waves to illustrate the different layers which make up the back of your eye.
For a number of years, we have been able to photograph the back of your eye making the record of your ocular health much more accurate. With the new 3D scan we still have the photograph but now we also have a three dimensional cross section of the back of your eye.
The scan is non-invasive, painless, simple and quick. The information it gives us is invaluable in picking up the most subtle changes to your retina.
What can the scan check for?
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Glaucoma
damages the optic nerve at the point where it leaves the eye. The danger with chronic glaucoma is that there is no pain and your eyesight will feel unchanged but your vision is being damaged. In many cases an OCT scan will be able to confirm the presence of this sight threatening disease before it could be detected in a regular optician’s sight test. -
Age-related macular degeneration
causes the gradual breakdown of the central area of the retina. This is the most common cause of vision loss in the over fifties. OCT can not only identify this condition and its type (there are two, wet or dry) it can also monitor progression. In some cases monitoring the eye’s improvement with treatment. -
Diabetes
is a major cause of visual impairment among adults. Here in the UK more the two million have been identified as having diabetes. OCT enables early detection which greatly improves the success rate of treatment. -
Macular holes
are small holes in the retina which effect the area of the eye responsible for sharp, detailed central vision as you can imagine damage to this area can result in loss of vision. -
Vitreous detachments
Vitreous detachments are when the jelly inside our eyeball moves away from the back of our eye towards the centre, in some cases it does not detach and pulls against the retinal surface and this could result in a hole. An OCT would easily identify this problem but again your eyesight can seem unchanged even though damage to the back of your eye is occurring.
Join our Practice Membership Plan and gain unlimited access to OCT technology.
It is highly unusual to find this sort of technology outside of an eye hospital but this state of the art TOPCON 3D OCT is now available at Bill Opticians. However just having this equipment is not enough to provide outstanding eye care and at Bill Opticians our optometrists will fully review the results of your OCT and discuss the findings with you. 3D OCT is available to patients on our Practice Membership Plan.
For more information on our plan: https://www.billopticians.co.uk/membership-plan/