Color Blindness

What Causes Color Blindness?

Color blindness is believed to be primarily related to genetics. If you have a close family member with the condition, you are much more likely to be diagnosed with it yourself. More men are affected than women because it is the X chromosome that carries the color-blindness gene. If your color blindness is genetic, you will have it from birth and the quality of your color vision should remain steady for the duration of your lifetime.

There are some diseases that can cause people to be diagnosed with color-blindness in later life including diabetes, liver disease, Parkinson’s disease, and multiple sclerosis. If you experience a severe eye disease, your ability to see color may also be affected. Examples of eye diseases that can affect color vision include macular degeneration and glaucoma. If you develop color blindness in later life, you may find that the severity of your condition worsens over time.

What Colors Do Color-Blind People Struggle to See?

Most people who are classed as being color blind find it most difficult to tell the difference between shades of green and red. For a smaller number of patients, the struggle is between blue and yellow. This color deficiency determines how they see or don’t see, other colors. For example, a patient with red-green color deficiency might mix up blue and purple pens because they are unable to see the red element that turns blue into purple.

Studies have found that out of a standard box of 24 colored pens, a patient who has red-green color blindness will only be able to accurately identify around 5-6 of them. The colors that they can see may also appear muted and not as vibrant as they actually are to someone who doesn’t suffer from a color deficiency.

Managing Color-Blindness

The best way to manage your color-blindness will largely depend on the cause of your condition. In the case of genetic color-blindness, there is no real treatment that can help. Instead, our team can help you to find the best ways to manage your day to day life with compromised color vision. This could include using numbering systems rather than color-coding things or remembering the order in which colors are likely to appear – such as the red, amber and green of traffic lights. Small changes can make a big difference in how you function during the day.

If your color blindness is believed to be caused by a medical or ocular condition, treating the cause may relieve some of your symptoms. Our dedicated and knowledgeable team will discuss this with you so that we can decide together what treatments may be able to help.

If you have questions about color blindness that we haven’t answered here, or if you would like to have an appointment with our expert team, please contact South Gate Optometry in South Gate, CA today.