New View Optometry

By Meredith Knight

It was during a routine eye exam that Jennifer Schirner chose the direction of her life. “I was in premed in college, went for my annual exam, and the optometrist asked me what direction I planned to take in med school,” she said. “He suggested optometry, but I couldn’t imagine spending my life asking people, ‘What’s better, one or two?’ He explained that optometry is much more. We diagnose and treat eye diseases, prescribe and supervise vision therapy, and really improve the quality of our patients’ lives.”

From there, the doors fairly flew open, and Jennifer was soon studying optometry. “It’s been the perfect job for me,” she said. Dr. Schirner opened New View Optometry, where she provides all the usual services of glasses and contacts, often cutting lenses in-house. She also diagnoses and treats diseases of the eye. But anyone who knows Dr. Schirner knows she loves a challenge. “I also fit contacts on people who haven’t been able to wear them before,” she said. “Other optometrists refer them to me, and the more complicated the case, the better I like it—and the happier the patient is when they walk out the door wearing contacts.”

New View Optometry offers scleral contact lenses that rest not on the cornea like traditional lenses but the eye’s sclera or white part. “The sclera has considerably fewer nerve endings than the cornea, which means less sensitivity and a very comfortable contact lens,” Dr. Schirner said. “They’re perfect for patients with corneal diseases, dystrophies, and degenerations (keratoconus), patients with corneal scars and irregularities, and patients who’ve had a corneal transplant or refractive surgery.”

Dr. Schirner also offers the next generation in contact lenses, orthokeratology lenses. “They’re specially designed and fitted contact lenses that temporarily reshape the cornea while you sleep,” she explained. “They basically do for your eyes what braces do for your teeth. You wear them at night. They reshape the front surface of the eye. Then, you take them out when you wake up, and they continue to correct myopia (near-sightedness) throughout the day without glasses or contacts. They’re perfect for children and those under 20 and too young for LASIK surgery.”

“We’re seeing an epidemic of myopia in kids,” Dr. Schirner said. “This is partially due to too much time on devices, but also because they’re not outdoors in natural sunlight enough.” Dr. Schirner offers myopia management treatment programs to reduce near-sightedness progression, which can lead to more severe eye conditions in adulthood. She also offers “drop-free puff-free eye exams.” She’s invested in the latest optometric technology to detect eye issues sooner when they’re most treatable.

When not on the job, Dr. Schirner is a wife and mother of two sweet boys. She enjoys traveling and going out to eat as a family. She supports Flower Mound High School cheerleading, Dorothy’s Dash MS fundraisers, and other local nonprofits.