Category: Eye Health

People will often experience some type of eye disorder during the course of their lives. While the majority of these are minor and don’t require treatment, even minor problems can have significant adverse impacts on your vision, and you should seek the guidance of a licensed medical professional.

We’ve compiled some of the most common eye disorders, their causes, and treatments below. This guide is meant to be educational and not all of the disorders listed below require medical attention, but if you are concerned, you should contact your medical provider immediately.
 

Eyestrain

Eyestrain is a prevalent eye disorder. Most people have experienced this at one time or another. This optical issue can be caused by placing excessive strain on the eyes. It often occurs when reading, viewing a screen or driving for too long. The eyes may begin to feel tired, or a mild burning sensation can occur. Simple rest is often enough to correct this issue. However, if you continue to feel discomfort for a few days, its time to visit your doctor.
 

Eye Redness

Eye redness can often be a minor issue that is caused by the inflammation or irritation of blood vessels near the eye’s surface. This can be caused by an irritant, lack of sleep, or allergies. If the redness in your eyes is linked to some type of traumatic injury, you should see a doctor. Typical treatments for this condition are eye drops to help lubricate the eye, resting your eyes, or taking medication to treat your allergies. Eye redness can also be a warning sign for conjunctivitis, pink eye, or sun damage. These conditions should receive medical treatment from a licensed professional.
 

Night Blindness

Some people find that they have difficulty navigating in darker areas like movie theaters, dark rooms, or driving at night. Several possibilities could lead to night blindness. Some may have been born with this condition, or it could be the result of a degenerative retina. These issues cannot be resolved by a medical professional. However, night blindness can also be caused by nearsightedness, vitamin A deficiency, cataracts, or keratoconus. All of these issues can be corrected by a doctor.
 

Strabismus (Crossed Eyes)

Crossed eyes are not a condition that you can fix by yourself. This issue is seen in the eyes not properly lining up with each other. However, an optometrist may be able to help correct this issue, so it’s worth scheduling an appointment.
 

Nystagmus (Shaky Eyes)

Nystagmus is the constant shaking of the eyes of which the patient has no ability to control it. Medical professionals have several options for treatment at their disposal. Sometimes vision therapy is enough to strengthen the muscles and correct the issue. If this doesn’t work, surgery can also correct the problem. Your doctor can discuss your best options with you.
 

Colorblindness

Red and green color blindness is the most common form of colorblindness, although other types may affect your ability to see different color combinations. Color blindness is caused because the eyes lack the appropriate “cones” that help to interpret and differentiate these colors. This makes certain colors appear identical to colorblind individuals. Very severe forms of colorblindness only allow individuals to see shades of gray, but this is very rare.

While there is no current treatment for the correction of color blindness, special contact lenses or eyeglasses can be prescribed to help.
 

Uveitis

This condition is the inflammation of the uvea. There are several potential causes of uveitis that can be very serious, but uveitis is an umbrella phrase that covers all causes that create inflammation of the middle layer of the eye.

Some of these causes can be compromises of the immune system, like AIDS, rheumatoid arthritis, or ulcerative colitis. If you have light sensitivity, blurred vision, eye pain, and eye redness that lasts more than a few days you should see your eye care professional.
 

Knowing When To Get Help

Your eyes are a sensitive and critical organ for your health and small injuries or damage to your eyes can have lasting effects. For this reason, if you sense that something is wrong with your eyes, it’s always a good idea to visit your eye care professional. Additionally, make sure to get your regular annual eye exams which can help detect any issues that your eyes may be having and assure that you get the appropriate care more quickly.

A cataract can occur in either or both eyes, and most people will experience cataracts when they reach an older age. However, people can have an age-related cataract in their 40’s and 50’s, but during these years, most cataracts are small and do not affect vision. It is after age 60 that most cataracts begin to rob your vision.

The most common symptoms of a cataract are:

• Cloudy or blurry vision
• Colors seem faded
• Glare. Headlights, lamps, or sunlight may appear too bright. A halo may appear around lights.
• Poor night vision
• Double vision or multiple images in one eye

Through a comprehensive eye exam, your Greenville EyeCare doctor can detect a cataract. If a cataract is detected, your doctor will recommend the best course of treatment. This may include treating an early cataract with new eyeglasses, recommending brighter lighting, use of anti-glare sunglasses, or even magnifying lenses. If surgery is required to remove the cloudy lens and replace it with an artificial lens, your doctor will review this treatment plan so that you are fully informed of the process and expectations.

Low vision is a term for conditions that result in reduced sight and cannot entirely be corrected with eyeglasses, contact lenses, medicines or surgery. Several eye diseases or conditions can cause low vision and here we will discuss the four most common causes of low vision and their risk factors.
 

Macular Degeneration

Macular degeneration is a disorder that affects the retina, which is the light-sensitive tissue lining the inside of the eye. Within the retina, the area responsible for sharp central vision (called the macula) deteriorates, causing blurred vision. This can cause a blind spot in the central area of vision, which leads to low vision.

There are two types of macular degeneration – non-exudative (dry form) and exudative (wet form). The dry form usually progresses slowly, while the wet form causes more rapid and severe vision loss due to abnormal blood vessels developing under the macula and leak fluid and blood. The biggest risk factor for macular degeneration is age. Other risk factors include genetics, race, smoking, and high blood pressure.
 

Diabetic Retinopathy

Diabetic retinopathy is a diabetes complication that affects the eyes. High blood sugar levels cause damage to blood vessels in the retina. These blood vessels can swell and leak (called macular edema). Sometimes they close, stopping blood from passing through (called macular ischemia). At first, diabetic retinopathy may cause no symptoms or only mild vision problems. However, over time, it can severely damage the retina, leading to low vision. Anyone who has diabetes can develop diabetic retinopathy. The risk increases for those who have had diabetes longer, as well as those with poor control of blood sugar levels, high blood pressure or cholesterol as well as those who smoke.
 

Cataracts

A cataract is a clouding of the lens in the eye that affects vision. This clouding can block the light from reaching the retina at the back of the eye, resulting in a general loss of vision. In some cases, a cataract can be surgically removed. Cataract surgery has a high success rate in otherwise healthy eyes but it is not always possible for people who also have other eye diseases. While the risk of cataract increases as you get older, other risk factors include diabetes, smoking, alcohol use, and prolonged exposure to ultraviolet sunlight.
 

Glaucoma

Glaucoma is a disease that damages your eye’s optic nerve. Most commonly, this occurs when fluid builds up in the front part of your eye which increases the pressure in your eye, damaging the optic nerve. There are four types of glaucoma: open-angle, normal tension, angle-closure, and secondary.
 

There are many risk factors for glaucoma, but those over 40 who have a family history of glaucoma should always have regular eye exams to check for glaucoma. In addition, you could be at an increased risk if your eye doctor has noted that you have high eye pressure, are farsighted or nearsighted, have thin corneas, thinning of the optic nerve, or have had an eye injury. Finally, certain health problems can cause glaucoma, such as diabetes, migraines, high blood pressure, or poor blood circulation.
 

How To Prevent Low Vision From These Diseases

Even though age and genetics play a part, you may have noticed some common risk factors – diabetes, smoking, and high blood pressure, which are all within your control.

Here are the most important steps you can take to reduce your risk of low vision from macular degeneration, diabetic retinopathy, cataracts, and glaucoma.

• Be aware of your family’s health history
• Get regular physicals
• Move your body
• Eat a healthy diet
• Don’t smoke
• Check out changes in vision with your eye doctor
• Protect your eyes from the sun
• Get your eyes checked at least every two years

By understanding the diseases that cause low vision, you can take steps now to reduce modifiable risk factors or get an early diagnosis to preserve your eyesight.

Summer, the season when everyone gloriously basks in the sun, soaks up that unparalleled pond life, and runs for cover when those tempestuous summer thunderstorms come barreling through. It’s also a time of rainbows!

Whether or not Pride Month was deliberately meant to be celebrated at the beginning of the rainbow season, that is serendipitously the way it turned out. Those summer sunny rainy days mean rainbows flapping in the summer breeze and arcing across the sky in all their ephemeral brilliance. But what if the rainbows you’re seeing aren’t on flags or fleeting on the horizon, but right there at the center of your vision, and not just in the heart of summer?

The quotidian flag and meteorological rainbows are entirely harmless and often extraordinary, but rainbows in your vision on a daily can be a sign of a serious eye condition.
 

Rainbow Vision

A lot of people will experience brief rainbow vision when exposed to bright lights, but the kind of rainbow vision that doesn’t dissipate relatively quickly or is accompanied by headaches, eye pain, blurred vision, or nausea is generally not something that should be dismissed.

The most common causes of rainbow vision are cataracts, glaucoma, migraines, and corneal edema.

At the top of the list are cataracts. Much like water droplets in the atmosphere create a haze through which sunlight is refracted creating a rainbow across the sky, a cataract is a clouding of the lens of the eye causing light to scatter creating rainbow-like halos around objects in your vision.

Glaucoma is likewise a condition of damage to the optic nerve caused by a variety of possible conditions, the result of which is a build-up of pressure and likely fluid inside the eye, distorting the eye, and creating rainbows around objects amongst other possible symptoms.

Migraines and corneal edema are both linked to increased pressure in the eye resulting in distorted vision including rainbows.
 

Treatment Of Rainbow Vision

There is no treatment for seeing rainbows after a sun shower or playfully fluttering on flag poles, but if the cause of your rainbow vision is something physiological, your eye doctor may recommend a few different avenues of treatment.

If cataracts are deemed the cause of your symptoms, an ophthalmologist may recommend cataract surgery to remove the cloudy lens and replace it with an artificial one. Beyond surgery, there are eye drops or other medications that can reduce inflammation or pressure in the eye clearing up symptoms like rainbows and headaches, or laser surgery may be recommended to treat glaucoma or other eye conditions.

Ultimately, if the rainbows you’re seeing are radiating around most of the objects in your vision, it’s time to contact your eye doctor for an exam, otherwise, enjoy the transient summer days and occasional rainbows until it’s time to hibernate again for winter.

Retinopathy simply refers to damage to the retina caused by disease. The retina is the layer of tissue and cells at the back of the eye that captures light and transmits that light as images to the brain. Any damage to the retina via injury or disease can and often leads to vision impairment or complete vision loss.

Disease that affects the retina usually impacts the blood vessels in the retina, which results in loss of vision. The most common diseases to cause retinopathy, are hypertension and diabetes.

High Blood Pressure Damages The Retina

Healthy blood pressure is generally considered less than 120 systolic and less than 80 diastolic. The systolic number refers to the pressure when the heart contracts and pushes blood out through the body. This number is measured when the heart beats. The diastolic number is the opposite pressure when the heart relaxes and fills with blood returning from the body, which is measured between heartbeats. 

When the systolic pressure starts to push over 130 and that diastolic pressure over 80, a person starts to experience hypertension.

Hypertension or high blood pressure is usually caused by diets heavy in salts and fats, being overweight, not enough exercise and physical activity, over consumption of tobacco and alcohol, stress, and lack of sleep. High blood pressure can damage blood vessels throughout the body, including the retina where it is called hypertensive retinopathy, damage to the blood vessels in the retina resulting in vision impairment or loss of vision entirely.

Diabetic Retinopathy

The other most common cause of retinopathy is diabetes. Both type 1 and type 2 diabetes can ultimately cause diabetic retinopathy.

Diabetes often results in hyperglycemia, or high blood sugar, which if left untreated or unmanaged can lead to blockages or bulges in the blood vessels in the eye affecting essential blood supply and causing significant vision issues.

Retinopathy Prevention And Treatment

The best way to prevent retinopathy is to address the underlying diseases that cause damage to the retina. Managing and treating both hypertension and diabetes will help prevent damage to the retina and resulting retinopathy.

The next best way to prevent further damage and treat retinopathy is early diagnosis. An ophthalmologist will use both an ophthalmoscope during an exam and pre-screen with a Confocal Fundus Imaging System like the DRS Plus to closely examine the retina and observe for damage.

Blurry vision, double vision, floaters or spots in vision, unresolved eye pain, and decreased peripheral vision can all be early signs of retinopathy, though many patients do not experience significant symptoms before the damage is well established.

Regular comprehensive eye exams are always the most reliable way to prevent and treat any eye issues including retinopathy.