Just heard from a reader who said family and friends made her feel guilty about making a ‘fuss’ when she lost sight in her first eye. After all, she was older and you need to expect these things. Also it was ‘only’ one eye. She had two; did she not? She should have been happy she had one good one! They did not think she should fear vision loss.
Good grief. Not sure what species these people are from but we humans have a pretty strong fear of vision loss. In fact WebMD published results of a survey that found vision loss is what Americans fear the most.
This is a consistent finding across varying racial and ethnic groups. We ALL fear going blind.
In fact, fear of loss of sight was the same or greater than fear of losing hearing, memory, speech or a limb. And what is so scary about loss of sight? Quality of life and loss of independence, of course. Having good vision can be seen as a key to one’s overall sense of well-being. Good vision is frequently seen as essential to overall health and daily functioning. Good vision is seen as basic to just about everything.
There are five – just five – basic fears according to Psychology Today and I can see sight loss as feeding into three of them. First is the fear of mutilation, the loss of a body part. I took a little poetic license with this one, equating loss of function with loss of the organ itself. Then there is loss of autonomy, pretty self-explanatory, and separation. Sensory loss can certainly lead to a lack of social interaction. Is it any wonder we get so upset about sight loss? It taps into three out of five primal fears!
Fear is not just for weaklings and sissies. Fear is a valuable emotion. It tells us something is wrong and we had better start paying attention. There is something that needs to be dealt with. It is not only necessary but perfectly acceptable to listen to your fears.
To address their first point, vision loss is not an inevitable part of aging. There are a number of vision changes that occur but it seems only one of the common ones is not considered a ‘disease’. This is presbyopia – literally ‘old eyes’ from the Greek – or farsightedness. Presbyopia can be fixed in one of two ways: corrective lenses or grow longer arms!?
The Washington Post article entitled Vision loss is a part of old age but it’s not inevitable then goes on to list the rest of the causes of vision loss in older folks: cataracts, glaucoma and retinal disease. Please note the word ‘disease’.
Disease is not a normal part of anything and yes, you get concerned, and, yes, you see a doctor.
Our reader still did have one eye left, but would you like a good obsession? Try wondering when you will lose function in the second eye! That should afford you untold hours of uninterrupted worry! Somewhere I read waiting for the second eye to go is one of the most stressful things about progressive eye disease. Don’t know where, though. I read quite a bit on the subject.
Take away points: sight loss is not inevitable. Most causes of sight loss in older folks are considered disease and there are treatments for most of them. Don’t let anyone but a retina expert tell you there is nothing wrong. Most importantly, although I did not say this earlier in this page, if there is a sudden onset of symptoms, act quickly and get to the doctor.
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