So, You Had to Look at the Sun — Did You Damage Your Eyes?
As we all know the Great Eclipse of '17 was not much of a show here. Still, millions of people did indeed watch and enjoy the show. I'd like to think we all watched responsibly as they say in the beer ads. Deep down inside, I know we didn't,
I know we didn't because according to an article on Live Science, following yesterday's eclipse, eye doctors were inundated with calls asking questions about eye damage from looking at the son. That means that, in spite of all the warnings all month long from every media outlet on earth, some people looked at the sun.
Google says that searches for the answers to question about eye damage lead the pack in searches after the excitement of the eclipse wore off. Well, if you were on of those who just had to sneak a peek and now you're wondering if you did any damage, here's your answer.
One of the first symptoms is blurry vision. It may feel that your eyes are constantly trying to refocus on something. That business report you breezed through yesterday before the eclipse may be oddly hard to read today.
Here's a scary symptom; you may experience a blind spot in one of both eyes. If you're experiencing blind spots call your optometrist right away.
If everything you look at reminds you of a Salvador Dali painting, you could be suffering from distorted vision a sure sign that you stayed too long at the fair...er ..eclipse.
There's a condition called "chromatopsia" and that means that you may not see colors the way you used to. In other words, you become somewhat color blind. That would indeed be a sad symptom for an art lover.
I hope you're not suffering from any of these symptoms today, but if you are, there's some hopeful news in all of this. As long as you didn't overdo looking at the sun, the symptoms may go away completely. In a small test group in England, about 85% reported that their vision returned to normal within a year.
I hope you didn't look and that you don't have any of these symptoms. If you do, I'm sure I don't need to tell you to make an appointment to see your optometrist as soon as possible.
The source material for this article came from Live Science