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Home » What's New » Keeping An Eye On Poor Vision

Keeping An Eye On Poor Vision

A decline in strong vision is usually due to a few factors including changes in the body or irregularities in the eye or visual system, eye diseases, side effects caused by medication or injury. Lots of people also suffer from visual abnormalities associated with age or eye stress. This can lead to changes in your eyesight, which can sometimes cause discomfort and even make it harder to perform daily activities such as reading fine print or working on a computer for extended periods of time. Common signs and symptoms of these types of vision problems include blurry vision, headaches, eye strain, and problems seeing at close and far distances.

Blurred vision is one of the most oft-reported signs of a vision problem. If you report blurred vision when you are focusing on faraway objects, you may very well have myopia, or be nearsighted. Blurred vision that's present when you are looking at objects nearby may be a sign of hyperopia, or farsightedness. It can also be a sign of astigmatism due to a flaw in the shape of the cornea, or sometimes the curvature of the lens inside the eye. No matter the reason you have blurry vision, it's essential that an optometrist examine your eyes and decide on the best way to rectify your sight.

A sudden onset of flashes of light, often combined with black floating spots and what may feel like a dark curtain blocking a portion of your vision indicates the chance of what's known as a retinal detachment. If this is the case, see your eye doctor promptly, as it can have long-term consequences.

Another sign of a vision problem is trouble distinguishing shades or strength of color. This generally means the patient has a color perception problem, or color blindness. Interestingly, this condition is often unknown to the patient until proven with a test. Color blindness is mainly something that affects males. If a woman has problems seeing color it could represent ocular disease, in which case, an eye doctor needs to be consulted. For people who struggle to distinguish between objects in dim light, it is a sign of possible night blindness.

A condition frequently seen in aging people is cataracts, which can have several indicating signs including: unclear vision that is worse in bright light, weak night vision, trouble discerning small writing or objects, colors that appear faded or yellowed, improvement in near vision while distance vision worsens, painful inflammation around the eye, and an opaque white look to the normally dark pupil.

Pulsing pain in the eye, headaches, unclear vision, redness in the eye, rainbow halos around lights, nausea and vomiting are indicators of glaucoma, a serious medical condition, which requires immediate medical attention.

With younger patients, it is important to look out for uncoordinated eye movement, or eyes that cross in or out, which may indicate a condition known as strabismus. Specific behavior in children, like rubbing eyes frequently, squinting, head tilting, or the need to close one eye in order to focus better, often indicate this issue.

Even though some conditions may be more severe than others, any disruption to good sight will be a burden, and impact your quality of life. A quick visit to your optometrist can prevent unnecessary discomfort, not to mention further eye and vision problems.