Night blindness is not a disease

Your view Becomes blurry at night or hard to see in dim light? Maybe you experience nyctalopia or night blindness. This condition occurs when the cells in the retina that help see in the dark are damaged.

You need to know beforehand that night blindness is not a disease, but a sign or symptom of a certain underlying disease. For this reason, don't take night blindness for granted, this condition requires careful examination and proper treatment so that it can be overcome.

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Characteristics of Night Blindness

For those of you who experience night blindness, its characteristics can be recognized when carrying out daily activities, such as the following:

• Difficult to see the road when driving at night.
• Difficulty seeing around when walking in dark places, for example in a movie theater.
• It's hard to see the stars in the sky.

In addition, another symptom of night blindness is difficulty seeing when it is dark, your vision may worsen during the transition from a bright to dark room. To help clarify this complaint, try to compare it with the visions of other people around you. If other people can still see clearly in low light, then you most likely have night blindness.

Diseases That Cause Night Blindness

Some diseases or conditions that may cause night blindness symptoms:

• Vitamin A deficiency

  One of the bad effects that can occur on the eyes when there is a lack of vitamin A is keratomalacia. Keratomalacia is a disorder of both eyeballs. In addition to dry eyes, an early sign that you experience this condition may be night blindness.

• Nearsightedness or myopia

  Without the help of correcting glasses or contact lenses, people with myopia have difficulty seeing distant objects.

• Cataract

  The lens of the eye that should be clear becomes cloudy in cataract sufferers. This makes your view blurry.

• Glaucoma

  This condition is often associated with a buildup of pressure inside the eyeball (intraocular pressure). Glaucoma can damage your eye's optic nerve (the eye organ that transmits images to your brain) and make it worse over time.

• Diabetes

  Uncontrolled diabetes in the long term can make sufferers susceptible to disorders of the eye nerves.

• Keratonocus

  People with keratocus have a thin cornea and over time, the cornea can turn into a cone. This makes vision blurry and sensitive to light.

• Retinitis pigmentosa (RP)

  This is a hereditary eye disease. This condition occurs when the retina is filled with dark pigment.

• Usher syndrome

  One of the symptoms of this condition is retinitis pigmentosa or RP .. This condition is a hereditary disease that affects vision and hearing.

• Effects of certain drugs

  The use of drugs for glaucoma can make the pupils narrow, causing side effects such as night blindness.

How to overcome Night blindness

Overcoming night blindness must be adjusted to the cause. To find out, the doctor will review your medical history and perform a physical examination of the eyes. After that, the doctor may do a blood test to determine the level of sugar and vitamin A in the body.

Here's how to fix it according to the cause:

• Vitamin A deficiency may be overcome by taking vitamin A supplements.
• Mild keratonosis can be treated with glasses or contact lenses. But for most people, contact lenses are the most effective way. For severe corneal thinning that cannot be corrected with contact lenses, a surgical line may be required.
• If night blindness is caused by myopia, the way to overcome it is to use glasses that are adjusted to your minus.
• For people with cataracts, you can undergo surgery to replace the cloudy lens of the eye with a clear artificial eye lens.
• Using eye drops from a doctor to reduce eye pressure in people with glaucoma. This drug works by reducing the formation of fluid in the eye. Oral medication, surgery, or laser therapy can also be used if treatment with eye drops alone is not effective.
• If you experience night blindness due to drug use, do not stop taking it immediately. Consult your doctor first before lowering the dose or stopping taking it.

You should not drive at night or engage in activities in the dark, to avoid accidents or other risks. Consult an ophthalmologist for further treatment of night blindness.