Night blindness is also called nyctalopia.It's a type of vision impairment. People with night blindness experience poor vision at night or in dimly lit environments. It is not a disease in itself, but rather a symptom of an underlying problem, usually a retina problem.

What Causes Night Blindness?
A number of eye conditions can cause night blindness, including:
1. Nearsightedness or blurred vision when looking at faraway objects.
2. Cataracts or clouding of the eye's lens.
3. Retinitis pigmentosa, which occurs when dark pigment collects in your retina and creates tunnel vision.
4. Vitamin A Deficiency
5. Zinc Deficiency
6. Dry Eyes
7. Diabetes

Are the Symptoms of Night Blindness?
The sole symptom of night blindness is difficulty seeing in the dark. You're more likely to experience night blindness when your eyes transition from a bright environment to an area of low light, such as when you leave a sunny sidewalk to enter a dimly lit restaurant. You're likely to experience poor vision when driving due to the intermittent brightness of headlights and streetlights on the road.

How can I Prevent Night Blindness?
You can't prevent night blindness that's the result of birth defects or genetic conditions, such as Usher syndrome. You can, however, properly monitor your blood sugar level and eat a balanced diet to make night blindness less likely. 

Orange colored foods are excellent sources of vitamin A, including:
1. Cantaloupes
2. Sweet potatoes
3. Carrots
4. Pumpkins
5. Butternut squash
6. Mangoes

What are the Treatment Options for Night Blindness?
The treatment will depend on its causes.
1. Nutrient deficiency (Vitamin A and Zinc) is the easiest to treat. 
2. If the cause is cataract, you can go for cataract surgery to remove the clouded lens and replace it with artificial intraocular lens. Vision is usually dramatically improved after surgery. 
3. For dry eye syndrome, lubricate your eyes with artificial tear drops as they provide instant relief. Just make sure that they are without preservatives. 
4. Diabetic retinopathy can be prevented with tight control over blood sugar, active lifestyle and good dietary habits.
5. As for retinitis pigmentosa, unfortunately there are no treatments available. Thankfully, new research is showing that vitamin A might have a slowing effect on the progression of this eye disease.

Night Blindness: Causes and Symptoms

What crying does to your body

Do you know that every little activity that you perform on a daily basis impacts your body? what you eat, how long you sleep and even every tear you shed affects your body. Most people are aware of how their body reacts to major activities, like exercising, but few are aware of how the body reacts when they cry.

While you are generally concerned with the mental cause and effect of crying, have you thought about what crying does to you physically? tears are not always shed when a person is upset. Tears are a body's way of expressing itself as well as protecting itself. Everything from a happy ending in a movie to a dust particle in the eye can make you tear up.

There are essentially three kinds of tears. Basal tears and reflective tears help keep the eyes lubricated and irritant free respectively. It is the psych tears, which we commonly refer to as crying, that come as emotional responses.

Crying might be a sign of emotional stress and pain but if you are wondering how it harms your body, the answer is that it does not. Crying does not harm one's body physically. In fact it does better than harm to your body, purely physically speaking. Here's how-

- when you cry, your tears help your eyes remain clear.

- it also has anti-bacterial properties that keep your eyes clean.

- your eyes remain properly hydrated thus reducing any kind of irritation. You might feel dehydrated after a while due to the loss of water and salt.

- even the excess manganese in your body gets washed out through tears.

But for some, the act of crying can cause medical complications. It can lead to fits or can cause an acute shortness of breath. For those with severe heart conditions, there can be a cardiac pain. Crying can take a toll on your body if you have certain medical conditions. For most people crying does more good for their body than harm.

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Related Tip: Why India Has POOREST Eyesight? + 4 Tips for Improving Your Eyesight

What Does Crying Do to Your Body | Good & Bad Effects

Do your eyes get tired easily? Do they look sore or sandy? If yes, then it s time to worry for your eyes now. There is every possibility that you might have developed a dry eye. It is a common disorder of the eyes that occurs due to aging. It causes discomfort as you end up feeling scratchy or gritty all the time. The eyes turn red and have a burning sensation and feel itchy. Things get worse when you tend to stress your eyes by spending extra hours in front of the computer or read texts. In fact, the discomfort increases as the blinking frequency of the eyes get reduced.

One may also develop blurred vision due to dry eyes. An individual feels as if there is some particle inside his or her eyes, but finds nothing. Though this condition doesn t lead to very dangerous consequences, it is always a wise decision to seek medical help. The medical term for this condition is keratoconjunctivitis sicca. Once you develop dry eye, there is always a tendency to get it back again. But, the good news is that it can be treated to get some relief.

Causes
Dry eye is caused due to problems related to tear formation. When we blink our eyes, a film is formed over it. This thin layer is called a tear film. Tear film is responsible for clarity in vision. In case, enough tear is not produced, one tends to suffer from dry eyes. It is mainly caused due to ageing. 
If you don't produce enough tears, if your tears aren't of the right quality or your tears aren't spread across the front of your eye properly then you may develop dry eye. The glands producing tear or the tear film get inactive with age. Sometimes, the tear film is also affected by certain medicines, contact lenses, diseases like rheumatoid arthritis and Sjogren's syndrome.

Treatment
Dry eyes caused due to ageing cannot be cured completely. You must see a doctor for treatment but there are no permanent cure remedies. However, there are ways to help you get some relief. Here are the ways:

Try to increase the natural tears: There are certain home-based remedies to get some relief from the problem. You can keep the temperature of your room lower to get rid of the symptoms of dry eyes. Higher temperature leads to the evaporation of the tears. You can keep a humidifier in your room that adds more moisture to the air inside the room. This prevents drying up of the eye due to evaporation of tears. It is also found that when one blinks less, tear formation is reduced. The blinking is reduced while working on computers and reading. One must be careful while doing such things and try and blink as many times as possible.
Use eye drops: One needs to use eye drops called  artificial tears.  They are an alternative to the natural tears. If usual drops are not effective, gel-based thicker drops or overnight ointments are prescribed.
Block tear ducts: Another way of tackling dry eyes is by reducing the drainage of tears. For this, the tear ducts are blocked by plastic pieces called punctual plugs. The process is termed as punctal occlusion.
Take food supplements: Certain oils and Omega 3 and 6 are known to be beneficial in treating dry eyes. Include these supplements in your diet to keep your eyes healthy.

Dry Eye Syndrome - 4 Ways to Treat It!

Glaucoma is a serious eye condition in which the optic nerve gets damaged and the situation gets worse over time. If untreated, individuals may go permanently blind. Most individuals, with glaucoma, have no previous symptoms or warning signs of this disorder and this is the reason why it is important to have regular eye check-ups.

Causes of glaucoma
Eyes have a liquid called aqueous humor. This fluid flows out of the eyes through mesh like channels for proper lubrication of the eye. However, there can be situations in which these channels may get blocked. In such a case, there would be a build-up of this liquid, thereby causing an increase in fluid pressure. This is usually a major cause of glaucoma. Although there has been no elaborate evidence of what exactly causes this blockage, doctors have noticed that this can be inherited.

Other less common causes include:

Any sort of blunt injury or chemical injury to the eye
Blocking of blood vessels inside the eye
Other inflammatory conditions
Improper eye surgery
Types of glaucoma
There are mainly two kinds of glaucoma than can occur:

Open-angle glaucoma: This is the most common kind of glaucoma and is also called wide-angled glaucoma. In this kind, the tubular meshwork through which the liquid flow occurs is normal. However, the fluid flow isn t the way it should be.
Angle-closure glaucoma: This is also known as acute glaucoma or chronic angle closure. In this case, the liquid is not able to drain properly because of the angle between the iris and the cornea being too narrow, thus causing the iris to be in the way. This can cause a sudden build-up of pressure, thereby leading to chronic glaucoma.
Facts about glaucoma

This disorder usually has no previous signs or symptoms and occurs all of a sudden.
This disorder mainly affects individuals above 40 years of age.
Glaucoma can be inherited.
People with diabetes have chances of suffering from glaucoma.
If not treated early, it may lead to permanent blindness.
Symptoms of glaucoma
Usually there aren t many symptoms to warn people about this disorder. However, one of the first signs is definitely losing peripheral or side vision. Other symptoms might include

Chronic vision loss
Visibility of halo around lights
Narrowed vision
Glaucoma is treated by any of the three methods:

Prescription eye drops in order to reduce eye fluid formation, thereby resulting in outflow increase
Laser surgery
Microsurgery

Glaucoma - A Complete Guide on It!

Hypertension is a killer disease whose symptoms develop late when the damage is in advanced stages. Hypertensive Retinopathy is one such disease.

It damages the retina of eyes. Since retina is responsible for vision formation, Hypertensive Retinopathy can result in loss of vision. It is of grave concern that in most cases, Hypertensive Retinopathy is diagnosed later.

This is due to the fact that there are often no symptoms in the early stages of the disease. In some cases, where symptoms do manifest, patients may experience pain in the eyes, reduced vision, or headache.

What Happens in Hypertensive Retinopathy

People suffering from long term hypertension are susceptible to Hypertensive Retinopathy. Long-term hypertension affects the small and narrow blood vessels that join arteries to capillary blood vessels taking blood to different parts of the eye. These blood vessels become narrow with time if hypertension in the eyes continues unabated. This narrowing is more common in young adults compared to older people. Such unabated systemic hypertension also leads to leakage of fluid. This is why in some cases of Hypertensive Retinopathy, patients may experience exudation. Ultimately, Hypertensive Retinopathy may lead to damage to retinal blood vessels.

Risk Factors

Long standing hypertension is the number one risk factor for Hypertensive Retinopathy. People who are suffering from longer hypertension become most susceptible for this ailment.

However, studies have shown that hypertension for more than 5 years can even make people susceptible to this ailment.

Diagnosis

Diagnosis is done by Funduscopic Examination. The doctor would look at the eyes of the patient through an Ophthalmoscope which has different lenses. The Ophthalmoscope illuminates the retina and the doctor looks at the retina with different lenses. He can get a view of the retina, including blood vessels and optic nerve disks.

Findings of Diagnosis

For a person suffering from Hypertensive Retinopathy, this examination is likely to show:

Constriction of the arterioles.

Changes in the walls of retinal blood vessels.

Flame-shaped hemorrhages in the retina.

Yellow and hard exudates.

Spots in the shape of cotton wool.

Swelling of the optic disc.

Treatment

The primary treatment for Hypertensive Retinopathy is controlling blood pressure of the eyes. Some lifestyle changes like reducing the intake of salt, avoiding tobacco, etc., may bring down or control systemic hypertension in the eyes. In many cases, doctors may just recommend lifestyle modifications. Nevertheless, it completely depends on the extent of the damage and whether or not there is any fluid accumulation.

If the doctor feels that lifestyle modification is not enough, he may go for medicines that help the patients to control blood pressure effectively.

If the problem is in advanced stages and there is fluid accumulation behind the retina, the doctor may go for Intravitreal injection or Laser Therapy to control the edema.

Conclusion

Eyes are one of the most significant part of the body, this is why it is important for people to take care of it. In case of disease like Hypertensive Retinopathy, one must consult a doctor before opting any treatment or medicines.

Hypertensive Retinopathy - Everything About It!

With technology at your fingertips, it is hard to think of times when the existence of laptops and television sets was unimaginable. Technology is common enough to be taken for granted in present times. TV and laptops are especially in widespread use. The primary reason could be entertainment, an urge to connect to the larger world, or the need to kill time. Such dependability leads to severe health hazards. Read on to find out more:

Effects of TV and laptops on your health:

    Sleep deprivation: Long hours of exposure to artificial light can lead to sleep deprivation.
    It can also lead to serious vision problems: Watching TV or using laptops for long hours can make your eyes vulnerable to constant glare. You fail to realize, but changing lights of a computer screen or of a television set in a dark room can be extremely strenuous for your eyes to adjust. Constantly changing lights can lead to glaucoma. However, dry and itchy eyes, headaches and poor vision are the commonly noticed effects.
    It causes obesity in children and adults: Since all your work can be done on the internet, you tend to become lethargic. You are too lazy to go to the market or to the bank. Even if you are not watching you use the television for background music. Adults therefore do not make qualitative use of their free time. Children are addicted to playing games and browsing sites on the laptop. They hardly indulge in outdoor games. This leads to obesity in adults and children all the same.
    Propels your desire to eat fast food or packaged food: Binge eating is a very common practice while watching TV or using laptops. Chips, pizzas, burgers, ice- creams, cold drinks and absolutely anything junk devoid of nutritional value are more liked by us. Junk food not only leads to weight gain but is also detrimental to our digestive system.
    Can increase the risk of infertility in men: Laptops heat up when used for a long span of time. This heat can increase scrotum temperature which results in reduced sperm production, leading to infertility.   

As is said, nothing in excess is good for your health. It is therefore, best to make controlled use of TV and laptops to avoid its harmful effects.

Watching TV and Using Laptop: How it Affects Your Health?

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