August 2017 - Oldfields Opticians

What is colour blindness?

Colour blindness is a condition that affects a significant percentage of the population. It is the inability to perceive colour differences under normal conditions and the decreased ability to see colour. It is not actual blindness and many people who are colour blind are still able to see objects clearly, but there is a deficiency of colour vision.

Colour blindness can change a life

Colour blindness can change a life and it makes reading and learning harder for children and young adults and it makes pursuing certain careers impossible. Examples of careers that exclude colour blind people include electricians and various driving jobs because of traffic lights. However, both children and adults can learn to compensate for their problems seeing colour.

It’s rare that a person sees no colour at all and it’s usually that they have problems seeing red, green and blue colours or a mix of these.

Symptoms of colour blindness

Typical symptoms of colour blindness vary and one person may be able to see some colours and not others. For example, you may be unable to differentiate between red and green colours but able to see yellow and blue.

Another symptom is the ability to see many colours, but not knowing that you see colours differently from the majority of people. Also, you may have the ability to see certain shades of colour while other people see thousands of them.

Causes of colour blindness

Colour blindness is caused in several ways, the most common cause is genetic.

There are three types of cone cells in the eye and each type senses either green, red or blue light. Colour is seen when cone cells sense different quantities of these three basic colours. And so a genetic deficiency in one of these types of cone cells leads to colour blindness.

However, colour blindness is not always inherited. It can also be caused as a result of injury to the eye, medical side effects and eye conditions such as cataracts and macular degeneration.

Diagnosis of colour blindness

A simple test will measure how well you are able to distinguish various colours. The most common test will involve looking at sets of colours and trying to identify a pattern in them such as a number or letter. This will identify the general type of colour blindness you have.

More complex tests such as arranging coloured chips according to how similar the colours are, or in a colour order can help to determine the extent of this.

Get tested for colour blindness

It is important to detect a colour vision problem early because it can make a big difference. Unfortunately, there is generally no treatment for colour blindness however opticians can provide coloured spectacle lenses which can sometimes help to discriminate between colours rather than clearly see them.

Buying cheap “off the peg” ready-made reading glasses may damage your eyesight according to research carried out by ‘Which’ consumer magazine which reveals that the majority of self-prescribed glasses affect health.

Independent research

In their research, ‘Which’ checked 18 pairs of glasses from high street stores and they found problems with almost half of them. The lead researcher found that those carrying a higher prescription – +3.50 to +4.00 – were considered to be of the greatest concern. They also found that the off-the-peg glasses cause headaches, eye strains, blurred vision and double vision – all the problems that spectacles are meant to solve.

Warning

‘Which’ has also warned that these cheap glasses are not suitable for people with higher prescriptions because they are not suitable for walking and other mobile activities because they ‘could cause a nasty accident’. The big problem here is that the centre point of the lenses may not be aligned and the lenses are made to the same power as each other, whereas each of your eyes typically requires a different power.

Therefore one eye might be clear while the other is blurred. ‘Which’ found this in a pair from Poundland which had a prescription strength that differed from the +3.5 on the packet.

Unfortunately, millions have turned to cheap glasses because of the perceived high cost of glasses from opticians.

Eye strain

Buying cheap “off the peg” glasses may save you money in the short term, however, that can come at a great expense later. These so-called ready readers sell for as little as £1 in high street shops and some of the common problems they are associated with include headaches and eye strain.

Too basic

Also, cheap reading glasses are mass produced and are designed only to magnify images in front of you, like a book. They correct only for the most basic of prescriptions and do not correct for astigmatism or correctly align the centre of the lenses to the centre of your pupils.

Glasses manufactured by an Opticians will be made specifically for you, will have your full optical prescription, correct alignment and will be made using optical grade materials.

Advice from opticians is that you should have an eye examination before buying any spectacles (“Off the peg” or otherwise) as the eye test can detect any problems with your eyes like cataracts or brain tumours as well as determine your full prescription.

Month: August 2017

Colour Blindness: Symptoms, Causes and Diagnosis

Can Cheap Glasses Affect Health?