This common habit is damaging your eyes, beware!
While we all have been told that gazing at the screen will damage our vision, we never came across a real life example until Dr Sudhir Kumar shared a case on Twitter.The tweet, which has details of how a 30 year old woman had vision impairment due to long term use of smartphone, has gone viral.
The smartphone vision syndrome
Dr Sudhir Kumar, whose Twitter account goes by the name @hyderabaddoctor, took to Twitter an interesting case.”30-year old Manju had severe disabling vision symptoms for one and half years. This included seeing floaters, bright flashes of light, dark zig zag lines and at times inability to see or focus on objects,” he writes and explains the condition in a series of tweets.After reviewing her history he found that she had smartphone vision syndrome or SVS. She used smartphones for several hours daily and also used it for more than 2 hours with lights switched off.
The diagnosis
“There were moments when she could not see anything for several seconds. This occurred mostly at nights when she got up to use washroom. She was evaluated by an #eye specialist and detailed evaluation was found to be normal. She was referred to rule out neurological causes,” he writes.”I reviewed the history. Symptoms had started after she quit her job of a beautician in order to take care of her specially abled child. She picked up a new habit of browsing through her smartphone for several hours daily, including >2 hours at nights with lights switched off,” he adds.
What is SVS?
Smartphone vision syndrome, the doctor explains, happens due to long term use of computers, smartphones or tablets. This can disable the vision power of the eyes. This is also known as computer vision syndrome or digital vision syndrome.
He prescribed this medicine to her…
Dr Sudhir says, he counseled the woman and explained to her the “possible cause for her vision impairment and suggested to her to minimize the use of smartphone.””I did not order any investigations nor did I prescribe any medicines (even though Manju requested, as she was anxious),” he writes in the tweet.”Manju was anxious as she feared something sinister with her brain nerves but was finally determined to take corrective action. She said- “instead of minimizing, I will stop looking at smartphone screen, unless absolutely necessary. In any case, my phone use is recreational,” he writes.
Her vision improved after 1 month
Dr Sudhir says, at one month’s review the woman’s vision impairment had gone. She was suffering from it for the last 18 months.”At 1-month review, Manju was absolutely fine. Her vision impairment of 18 months had gone. Now, she had normal eyesight, did not see any floaters or flashes of light. Moreover, her momentary loss of vision at nights also stopped. Our suspicion was proved right,” he tweets.
The takeaway
Concluding the long series of tweets, which has got 124.9K views so far, Dr Sudhir urges people to avoid looking at screens of digital devices for long, as it can cause severe and disabling vision-related problems.
