What’s Wrong With My Eyes?

Some of you may have already read this post, its been on my old Tumblr blog. But because quite a few people have made comments about it I wanted to add it to this new website so it isnt lost. I hope you find reading it interesting. As you’re probably already aware when reading this, I am a partially sighted person. Many people ask questions about my eyes, but some of it takes quite a while to explain. In this blog post I want to tell you a little about the different eye conditions that I’ve got. Some people also ask me how they can help me and I want to cover that here as well.

First of all we’ll look at what I’ve got. I suffer from three different congenital eye conditions, and that means that they’ve been here since I was born. The first one is called glaucoma and this is probably the one which affects my vision the most. Glaucoma is an eye disorder in which the optic nerve suffers damage, permanently damaging vision in the affected eye(s) and progressing to complete blindness if untreated. It is often, but not always, associated with increased pressure of the fluid in the eye, and that means that I have to travel to Moorfields Eye Hospital in London every few months to have the pressures in my eyes checked by the Doctors. This is probably the main cause of my sight loss, and means that in some parts of my eyes I have no vision at all. This photograph I made in Photoshop a while ago for Facebook gives you some idea about what I can see – click on it to see the full size version.

The next eye condition that I have is called nystagmus and its a form of involuntary eye movement. Most peoples eyes do this normally because its just part of seeing, but damage to one or more components of the vestibular system in my eyes mean my eyes do it a lot more, and they do it all of the time. In simple terms, this means that my eyes are continuously shaking around and everything looks a bit wobbly. If you know me personally, you might see me sometimes shaking my head or my hands about a little. This is something my brain does automatically to try and compensate for the continuous eye movement to try and make things appear more still when I look at them – It tends to happen more when I get tired.

The last one is called cataracts. A cataract is a clouding that develops in the crystalline lens of the eye or in its envelope, varying in degree from slight to complete opacity and obstructing the passage of light. When the passage of light is obstructed, this impairs vision. My cataracts aren’t to much of a problem these days as they were removed a few years ago now, but its something that still needs to be checked when I visit the hospital.

So now you know about my eyes and what I can see, I now want to cover the other question that I often get asked and that is “How can I help?”. Its the little things that make a big difference. Some people don’t know that I actually walk with a symbol cane and I do this so people around me know that I might not be able to see them. Because of my limited field of vision, I struggle in crowds because people seem to appear out of nowhere. It helps to have a friend who’s arm I can hold in situations like when travelling on the London Underground to guide me through. I really appreciate the friends who do this for me, thank you. The other thing that’s helpful is, if you’re writing to me by hand, do it in block capitals – its so much easier to read when its like that.

Thanks for taking the time to read this, I hope it has answered some of your questions. Please don’t be shy to ask me if you ever have any eye related questions, its nice to be able to talk about it sometimes rather than everyone keeping their questions to themselves.