| Reply 1 : When it comes to your eyes, it is always better to be safe than sorry! Unlike symptoms elsewhere in the body, you can easily see what is going on in your eyes. Some of these eye symptoms indicate harmless or mild conditions. But others may indicate more serious causes, which require immediate attention.
Some eye symptoms that you should never ignore are:
Floaters: They appear as hundreds of small dots, spots or pieces of string that move or float along your field of vision. If you start to see floaters suddenly along with flashes of light, you may be risking retinal detachment. It is an extremely serious condition that causes blindness. However, it may be treated easily if detected early enough.
Halos around lights: Sometimes, you may see halos around lights. This occurs when night vision is blurred. If you experience this along with eye pain, you may be risking cataract, glacoma or some other serious condition. It means your vision is already affected to some extent. You need to seek immediate medical attention and try to prevent further loss of vision.
Delay may lead to permanent blindness.
Loss of peripheral or central vision: Field of vision is everything that you can see with both eyes, while looking forward.
With aging, this field of vision may diminish. Sometimes, peripheral vision (which is what you normally see to the sides while looking forward) may get blocked. This happens due to increased pressure on the optic nerve. Sometimes, central straight-ahead vision may be blocked. This happens due to abnormal growth on the macula, which is an interior retinal tissue.
These damages to your eyes accumulate over time but the symptoms occur all of a sudden. If you visit an ophthalmologist soon and start treatment, you would do well to preserve your remaining vision. Delay only leads to further damage, more loss of vision and may eventually lead to complete blindness.
Double vision: Double vision is seeing two things when there actually is one. A sudden onset of double vision in both eyes accompanied by pain may indicate a problem in the brain. It may be a tumor, cancer or some other serious condition. Double vision is the first sign of many neurological disorders. If not treated promptly, it causes far-reaching disabilities. It can aggravate to loss of muscle coordination and affect simple motor movements such as holding things, sitting, writing or even balancing while standing.
Redness in the eyes: Most of us attribute eye redness to lack of sleep or a foreign object in the eye. But if your eyes continuously appear bloodshot, it may be something more serious. It may indicate a mild allergy or a major infection. Any redness in the eyes is a serious symptom that requires urgent care.
Sudden onset of distorted vision: Any sudden symptoms of blurred vision, loss of color perception, and increased sensitivity to light may indicate other disorders which are not directly related to the eye. However, they require prompt assessment by an ophthalmologist. He/she may assess the root cause and help to treat it further.
Precaution: The American Optometric Association recommends that all adults need to get an eye exam every two years. But most of us neglect to do so and hope that any annoying symptom in the eyes just goes away. Sometimes, this may cost us our vision.
Therefore, get regular eye tests and most importantly, do not ignore any troublesome symptom in your eyes. |
