Color Blindness: ​Symptoms And Causes

Symptoms of color blindness:

The symptoms for color blindness condition range from mild to severe and many people are unaware that they have color blindness in the beginning. If a child is suffering from color blindness the condition is only known to the parents when the child is learning about colors. The child will have trouble in seeing colors and the colors also look dull. The child is also unable to differentiate between two colors and it appears the same, which mostly happens with red, blue, green and yellow.

The vision sharpness gets affected only when the condition is severe. Achromatopsia is condition when a person is unable to see any color and can see only shades of gray, but this is a rare condition. Sometimes it is associated with light sensitivity, poor vision, nystagmus and amblyopia.

Causes of color blindness:

Some people suffer from color blindness even from their birth, known as congenital condition. Usually this gets passed from mother to son. This condition is because of the absence of cones in retina, which are helpful to distinguish between colors. Some of the other causes of color blindness are toxic effect from drugs, vascular disease, metabolic disease and trauma. Both the eyes get affected differently when the color blindness is caused because of a disease and it gets worse over time usually. If the optic nerve or retina gets damaged, the person may suffer from acquired color vision loss.

Women are less prone to color blindness during birth, when compared to men. This condition is more common Northern European descent. People suffering from diabetes, macular degeneration, glaucoma, Parkinson's disease, Alzheimer's disease, leukemia, Sickle Cell Anaemia and chronic alcoholism risk of acquiring color blindness. Drugs like hydroxychloroquine which is used to treat rheumatoid arthritis can also cause color blindness.