What Causes Low Vision?

I thought I would start with the causes of low vision because I'm curious about the different conditions that cause low vision.

Each heading is linked to a resource for that condition. At the end there are links for lists of more eye conditions.

Macular Degeneration

This condition is the leading cause of blindness in America. The macula is the part of the retina responsible for sharp, clear images.

Diabetic Retinopathy

Diabetes weakens and changes the blood vessels in the retina at the back of the eye. The blood vessels can begin to leak, swell, or develope brush like branches. Sometimes there are no symptoms, but if you're diabetic you need to have your eyes checked once a year. Left untreated this condition can cause blindness.

Retinitis Pigmentosa

This is a group of inherited diseases that damages the rods and cones in the retina. The rods are affected more than the cones. The rods provide side (peripheral) and night vision, and are affected more than the cones which provide color and clear central vision.

Coloboma

This is a cleft or gap in some part of the eye caused by a defect in the development of the eye.

Floaters and Spots

Specks and strands that seem to float across your field of vision. Actually they are shadows of bits of gel and cells inside the clear fluid that fills the eye.

Acquired (Traumatic) Brain Injury

Low vision can also be caused by head injury, stroke, and brain damage.




Glossary of Eye Conditions

EyeMDLink

Low Vision Causes

Common Eye Conditions Leading to Low Vision


I hope these links will help you in your quest for answers.

Dale L. Edwards

My Low Vision

I have low vision. I didn't know what that was when I started on this journey. There are many websites with a definition of what low vision is, but their definitions confuse me. I finally decided to make my own definition. I say low vision is when even with glasses a person doesn't see well.

I started on this journey when I was a child, but it wasn't until 2004 someone took me seriously.

I had trouble seeing the blackboard, but when my mother took me to the eye doctor he couldn't find anything wrong. Finally when I was 12 I was a little nearsighted, so they put me in glasses. I still couldn't see properly, but I think they thought I was just complaining. I can understand that. There is nothing obvious about my eye problems, to look at me you wouldn't think anything was the matter.

I muddled along until I started having trouble doing my job at work in 2002. My eyes just didn't want to focus properly. I've always had problems with transposing numbers, ect, and having trouble following a line of print especially when I was trying to go from a paper on the desk to the computer screen. I would have to be so careful to make sure I was putting the information in the right place.

I went to the ophthamologist, but he couldn't explain why I was having so much trouble. He did find a birth defect in my left eye, but he didn't think it could be giving me all this trouble. So they decided all my problems were due to dry eye. I couldn't do my job, so I quit. I went back to work for a craft store parttime and still had trouble.

This had been getting slowly worse for a long time. I stopped doing counted cross stitch about 10 years ago. It was just impossible to see the little holes even with a magnifier around my neck. I like to do decoupage, but by that time I couldn't see to cut out the pieces of paper you need to use to do that craft. I made my own up, I used stickers instead of cut-out pictures.

My mother was getting older, she'll turn 88 this year, so we decided to relocate close to her. California was too expensive anyway.

We were here about 2 months and she fell and shattered her elbow. That pushed me back into driving. I didn't feel safe, but she couldn't seem to accept that. I went to see a doctor that specialized in children, and he told me that my eyes weren't working together. He put me in prisms, and they seemed to work for awhile, but before a year was out, things were looking the same as when we started with the prisms. That doctor was an optometrist, and I decided I needed to make sure there wasn't anything else wrong, so I went to an ophthamologist. He told me my eyes weren't so bad I needed surgery. My eyes were where they tried to get others to with surgery.

Joy. I can't pass a driving test because I see double when I look around behind me. I see double when I look into the distance, and when I'm trying to do detail work. The last doctor I saw suggested I put a patch over one eye and go get my driver's license. He told me I have 20/20 vision and all I need are reading glasses. To say the least I was not a happy camper.

I want a 2nd opinion. I'm beginning to think that when a chart is backlit like the charts in the doctor's office I see better than when I'm out trying to get around. I can read the computer pretty good, but reading print is very hard. My eyes get tired so fast.

I was talking to a cousin of mine who has also had eye problems all her life. We have so many symptoms in common. Then she was telling about the eye problems her daughter had, too. One of my sons was born with his left eye turned in. I don't know about Beth, but all 3 of the rest of us have the problem on the left side.

I've been having trouble with night vision for a long time. I started having trouble seeing at night after it rained when I was about 32, 27 years ago. I've started having a lot of colored lights in my eyes when I change the intensity of the light I'm seeing in. I've had floaters all my life. I loose things in plain sight. When my youngest was a baby, I had to be very careful where I put the diaper pins especially on a patterned sheet, because I would loose the pins on the bed. Then I would have to feel around to find them.

In this blog I want to explore the causes of low vision, and the aids for low vision. Please feel free to comment and ask questions. I probably won't know the answer, but I'll find out if at all possible.

I want to invite you on the journey.

Dale L. Edwards