Prior to entering kindergarten, Nick Bantz failed his vision screening. When he donned his first pair of glasses, his vision, in every sense of the word, became clearer.
“Optometry has provided me with clarity since I was 5 years old,” says Bantz, who decided to pursue a career in optometry. He recently joined the team at VisionQuest Eyecare, a practice that was founded in 1997 by Dr. Terry Null.
“Dr. Bantz is an excellent listener who’s easy to talk to,” says Null. “Patients will want to form a long-term relationship with him for the sake of their eye health, happiness and security.”
Null now co-owns two clinics with Dr. Christopher Browning, one in Geist and another in Center Grove. The Geist office has four doctors: Anjali Shah, Rae Winters, Null, and Bantz.
“We individualize corrective wear for children, while controlling their eyeball elongations through custom contact lenses and medication,” she says. “They have better vision for school and sports, and they’re less likely to suffer blindness with decreased chances of glaucoma, retinal detachments and myopic maculopathy.”
VisionQuest Eyecare is the only eye doctor office in the state that partners with Treehouse Eyes to focus on myopia management in kids.
Winters, who lives in Fishers with her husband and two children, runs VisionQuest Eyecare’s Focus Vision Therapy department, located right next door. Here, vision therapists see patients for individualized therapy sessions that are designed to improve their visual tracking, focusing, eye teaming, and visual processing skills. They treat lazy eye (amblyopia), eye turns (strabismus), post-concussion vision syndrome, and vision-related learning difficulties.
“A lot of our patients have initial symptoms of headaches, blurred or double vision when reading, trouble keeping their place when reading, poor depth perception, poor visual memory that impacts their reading comprehension, and visual motion sensitivity,” says Winters. “At the completion of therapy, patients’ symptoms are typically resolved, and for kids we see a huge improvement in their reading skills and academic potential.”
Null specializes in the treatment of dry eyes, a common condition that occurs in a third of the population. Dry eye afflicts all demographics including children.
“I’m shocked by how many children have lost many of their tear glands, which we don’t think is reversible,” says Null, noting that dry eyes can be caused by multiple factors including digital screen time, sleep deprivation and autoimmune disorders.
Shah recently saw a patient who had been suffering with dry eye for decades. “She didn’t realize she didn’t have to live that way,” Shah says. “Through specialty in-office treatments, prescription drops and amniotic membrane treatments, she’s finally feeling better than she ever knew she could.”
Winters had a patient with severe amblyopia, and his weaker eye had 20/150 vision. After vision therapy, he can now see 20/25, which has drastically improved his sports performance. She’s seen patients with post-concussion vision syndrome and other acquired brain injuries like strokes. She’s had patients find huge relief in their visual symptoms with specialized optical treatments and/or vision therapy. One of her patients was so overstimulated after her concussion that she refused to enter busy stores. After her binocular vision workup, however, Winters found the proper prescription that her patient needed to experience relief.
Bantz, a Lilly scholar, is originally from Muncie and just moved to Fishers. He enjoys providing eye care to all ages.
“One of my favorite things about optometry is that the age of the patient in my chair could range from a 3-year-old with an eye turn, to a 97-year-old with glaucoma,” says Bantz.
The VisionQuest Eyecare office provides free InfantSee exams to babies between six and 12 months, which helps rule out high or asymmetric prescriptions, eye turns, and ocular diseases that can impact visual development. These exams are more thorough than the screenings performed at pediatricians’ offices.
Every day the team at VisionQuest Eyecare changes patients’ lives. Last year, a 17-year-old football player came in with poor vision. They fit him in scleral lenses, and now he sees 20/20.
Every year one of Null’s patients flies from Germany to be seen at VisionQuest Eyecare. “She mentioned that the doctors in Germany are quite arrogant, but here she feels respected, treated with kindness, and genuinely listened to,” Null says. “For her, it’s worth crossing the ocean to see us!”
The team at VisionQuest Eyecare provides personalized patient care. They also get patients in and out in a timely manner, usually in under an hour for routine care. In addition, patients are no longer subjected to eye-drop dilation or the air-puff tonometer test to measure eye pressure.
Finally, they invest in the very best in technology so they’re on the cutting edge of optometric developments.
“With the advanced technology like optomap and iCare tonometry, we can avoid things like the dreaded air puff, which patients dislike,” says Audrey Nelson, COO of VisionQuest Eyecare. “This makes going to the eye doctor more enjoyable.”
If you or your family are looking for an optometrist, call VisionQuest Eyecare to request a consultation. It is located at 13840 East 96th Street in McCordsville. For more information, call 317-720-2020.
