What are eye diseases?
Eye diseases are conditions that affect any part of your eye, and include conditions that affect the structures immediately around your eyes. These conditions can be acute (meaning they develop quickly) or chronic (meaning they develop more slowly and last a long time).
Your eyeball itself is where most eye diseases happen, but it isn’t the only place. Eye diseases also include conditions that can affect your eye muscles, eye socket, eyelids, or the skin and muscles immediately around your eyes.
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How common are eye diseases?
In general, eye diseases and vision disorders are extremely common. The World Health Organization estimates that over 2.2 billion people have some form of vision impairment or blindness.
One reason that eye diseases are so common is that your eyes don’t exist in isolation from the rest of your body. In fact, the opposite is true. Many conditions that affect your eyes happen because of or in connection with conditions affecting other body systems. That’s why there are hundreds of different conditions that can affect your eyes.
What are the most common eye diseases?
The most common eye diseases worldwide are:
Eye injuries are also a leading cause of vision loss and blindness. Experts track and research them like diseases to find better ways to prevent and treat eye injuries.
Eye cancers and tumors, while rare, do sometimes happen, but often they’re detectable with regular eye exams. Fortunately, many eye tumors are benign (noncancerous). These benign growths may still need removal to prevent them from affecting nearby tissues, but aren’t a greater threat.
What are the different types of eye diseases?
There are many types of eye diseases, but there are a few main ways to organize them:
- Structure. What specific part(s) of the eye do they affect?
- Underlying cause. Primary eye diseases start in your eye. Secondary eye diseases happen because of a condition elsewhere in your body that later affects your eye.
- Effect. What symptoms do they cause, or what functions do they affect or disrupt?
- Duration. Acute eye diseases, like eye infections, are very short-lived. But chronic eye conditions can last months, years or even your entire lifetime.
When talking about eye diseases, it’s also important to know the difference between sight and vision.
- Sight: This starts when light enters through the cornea and ends when light lands on the retina.
- Vision: This covers every step that’s part of your visual sense, including sight. It also includes how your nervous system handles and processes visual signals and turns them into what you see.
While many people — experts included — frequently use “vision” and “sight” interchangeably, they aren’t always the same thing. Sight-related diseases are specific to your eyes, while vision-related diseases can involve your brain and optic nerves, too. That’s why some diseases can cause vision loss even though your eyes work just fine.
FAQs
Eye diseases like macular degeneration, glaucoma, and cataracts, can cause vision problems. Symptoms vary a lot among these disorders, so keep up with your eye exams. Some vision changes can be dangerous and need immediate medical care.
What are the common diseases of the eyes? ›
The leading causes of blindness and low vision in the United States are primarily age-related eye diseases. Those diseases include age-related macular degeneration, cataract, diabetic retinopathy, and glaucoma. Other common eye disorders include amblyopia and strabismus.
Which eye disease is not treatable? ›
Vision loss usually starts in childhood — but some people with Stargardt disease don't start to lose their vision until they're adults. There's no treatment for Stargardt disease, but vision rehabilitation can help people make the most of their remaining vision.
Can eye diseases be cured? ›
Eye diseases are common, but it's still normal to experience difficult or unpleasant feelings when you learn you have one of these conditions. The type and severity of these conditions vary widely, but most are treatable, and many are curable.
How to identify eye disease? ›
Tests for Eye Disorders
- Angiography|
- Electroretinography|
- Ultrasonography|
- Pachymetry|
- Optical Coherence Tomography|
- Computed Tomography (CT) and Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI)|
When to seek medical advice
- Severe eye pain or irritation.
- Vision loss or double vision.
- Eye floaters, flashes of light or halos around lights.
- Severe headache.
- Nausea or vomiting.
- Numbness or weakness on one side of the body.
- Confusion, dizziness or trouble talking.
Retinitis Pigmentosa
The condition is characterised by abnormal retinal macrophages, leading to the loss of retinal tissue and vision. Symptoms of retinitis pigmentosa may include decreased side vision, difficulty seeing in low light, and difficulty adjusting to dark environments.
What is the best treatment for eye disease? ›
Detecting eye conditions in their early stages makes it possible to prevent vision loss from worsening with age. Some of the most common treatments for eye diseases include: Refractive surgery: This is a procedure that helps correct refractive errors. One type of refractive surgery is LASIK.
Which food is best for eyes? ›
Oily fish, nuts, citrus fruits, leafy green vegetables, and many other foods contain nutrients that may benefit eye health. Nutrients in foods, such as zinc, copper, vitamin C, vitamin E, and beta carotene, may help reduce the risk of age-related decline in eye health.
How long does eye disease last? ›
Eye problems will usually occur and frequently change in type or severity for between six months and two years. Once stabilized, it is unusual for the eyes to start changing again. Some patients are left with permanent changes, and in others the eyes return to normal.
Eye injuries, sudden changes to—or loss of—vision and eye pain can be signs of serious problems, requiring emergency attention. If you have any eye or vision symptoms, talk to your ophthalmologist. Always consult a doctor about your own health and seek treatment if you have any worries about your eyes or vision.
Can eye exams detect diseases? ›
Ophthalmologists may be able to detect early signs of heart disease in the eyes. When the retina is examined carefully using an imaging tool called optical coherence tomography, doctors may be able to detect microscopic marks left behind by an eye stroke.
What test is done to confirm eye disorders? ›
Ultrasound of the Eye (Biometry/IOL calculation, A-Scan, B-Scan) Ultrasound of the eye uses high frequency sound waves to detect and diagnose disorders in and behind the eye. Ultrasound of the eye is used when the doctor does not have a good view into the eye or behind the eye or needs to evaluate a specific lesion.
What is the most common eye condition associated with aging? ›
Age-related macular degeneration (AMD) can harm the sharp, central vision needed to see objects clearly and to do common things like driving and reading. Your eye care professional will ask about your family history and look for signs of AMD during a dilated eye exam.
What are the five defects of the eye? ›
Here, ophthalmologist Richard Gans, MD, explains the five most common conditions affecting your vision and shares tips for preserving your eyesight.
- Cataract. ...
- Diabetic retinopathy. ...
- Macular degeneration. ...
- Glaucoma. ...
- Refractive errors.
Blepharitis is an inflammation along the edges of the eyelids. The eyelids can become irritated and itchy, and appear greasy and crusted with scales that cling to the lashes.
What are the symptoms of neurological eye disorders? ›
Nerve problems can affect the nerves of the muscles surrounding the eyeball and those that control the dilation and contraction of the pupil. Such problems can result in symptoms such as double vision, nystagmus, oscillopsia and disorders of the pupils, such as anisocoria.
