The World is Grey - my experience of Colour Blindness (My experience of Colour Blindness)

Member Name: eskimo

Product:	My experience of Colour Blindness
Date:	16/02/02 (185 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Not a lot

Disadvantages: The world is grey

Until I was seventeen, I had a perfectly normal life, then one day at school, I was given a medical, which included an Ishihara Colour Test, (which involves looking at a lot of coloured dots, some of which have numbers through them) although the nurse did not say anything to me I could see she was puzzled about something. A few weeks later, some other people arrived at the school and gave me the same test, again they look puzzled, and kept repeating the tests, (presumably to see if I was giving them wrong answers). Eventually I was told that I was colour blind, but not only the standard red - green variety, but blue - yellow as well. The numbers that I had observed in the test were different from what they had expected from people with normal colour vision and also the more common form of colour blindness.

When I got home feeling a bit despondent, (utterly devastated actually), and needing a bit of comfort the first thing my father said to me was 'You didn't get it from me'. [Well tough dad, red-green colour blindness usually comes from the mother, but blue-yellow can come from either parent.]

What do I see:- I'm not completely colour-blind, everything looks coloured to me, I just see colours differently, what may be bright to other people (especially red) may be duller to me, I can distinguish between red and blue and yellow and green and most other primary colours; shades of colours I have problems with, and some coloured objects look similar to me, unless I place them near to each other then I may be able to see a difference.

How has it affected my life:- the first thing most people ask me after discovering my colour-blindness is 'what colour is?' and I usually get it right, but it does become annoying and boring after a while. Some good points however is I don't have to spend hours looking around the wallpaper shops to choose wallpaper and paint, matching curtains and bedcovers. I don't hang the wallp
aper up usually, although I am allowed to paste it. I don?t choose the furniture either.

What can I not do:- I can't be an engine driver (every boy wants to be one at some time), a policeman or an airline pilot (although if they're auditioning for another sequel to the film Airline [those with Leslie Nielson in them] then I would probably get the job as the pilot.)

What do I do:- I work in a lab, I can do titrations using coloured indicators (I can see most colour changes ).

Can it be cured:- No, its not a disease, it's caused by a lack of colour receptors in the cornea in the eye. There has been experiments using different colour lenses in each eye which can imitate normal colour vision, to a certain extent. A corneal transplant may also provide normal eyesight, (a bit drastic I would have thought). As I have been this way all my life, I would have thought that seeing colours totally different would not benefit me in any way now.

The Future:- It may be possible in the future to graft new receptors into the cones, or use genetic modification of the cornea

Summary: