This year’s World Sight Day has provoked discussions about practices that pose danger to the human eyes.
With the theme, Eye Care For All, Chukwuemeka Anene, an optometrist with Florida Eye Clinic in Abuja, warned against instilling herbs, sugar, breast milk, and holy water into the eye for whatever reason.
He also warned against a local surgery for cataract patients called “Couching”, which is practised by traditional healers.
He said such practices have damaged many people’s eyes, especially in North where they are frequent.
Anene also warned against patronising quacks who offer wrong diagnosis, and the habit of acquiring eye drops from road side chemists.
He counselled that eye glasses when prescribed correctly for patients with refractive error, make them see well.
His words: “Most people who come to the eye clinic have one form of refractive error or another. Glasses and contact lenses are the commonest form of treatment for refractive errors.
“As regards whether glasses weaken the eye, it is not correct. Glasses are only an aid that focuses light (in conjunction with the focusing structures of the eyes) on the retina.
“So when a person who has refractive error wears glasses, images that were previously focused on the retina now get focused and hence become clearer.
“What most people experience is just a psychological phenomenon in which having been used to good vision with glasses, they notice that removing the glasses returns their vision to that blurry stage before they wore the glasses.
“Nothing really changed except that the glasses had made their vision so clear that removing them make them feel as if their eyes have gotten worse because they have got used to clearer vision.
“Glasses are only an aid, like wearing shoes. Shoes don’t change your foot size. When you remove your shoes, your feet are as they were before you wore them. Same with eye glasses.
“However, wrongly prescribed glasses can give you visual discomfort like headaches, browaches and dizziness, heaviness, and even blurry vision. Once any of these is noticed, report back to your doctor who will re-examine you.
“In essence, glasses don’t weaken one’s eyes.”