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A woman lost her sight in one eye after spending all night on her phone. If you ever heard that sitting too close to the television would make you go blind as a child, your parents apparently weren’t wrong.
And don’t think that this can’t happen to you, either – this isn’t the only case of eye damage caused by using a phone too much. Doctors expect this trend to rise, too, as more and more people become reliant on these little rectangles of technology.
The patient, who chose not to share her name, spent most of the evening playing on her phone. The first thing she did when she woke up? Roll over and get right back onto her phone.
Within five minutes of waking up, she realized that her eyes didn’t feel good. After blinking a few times, the woman noticed something was wrong – she couldn’t see anything out of her left eye. At all!
She took herself to the nearest hospital, which was Songgang People’s Hospital located in Shenzhen, a major port in Southern China. She had to explain to doctors what was wrong, and more importantly, what she was doing before she lost her vision.
Doctors took a close look at her eye and immediately diagnosed her with something called valsalva retinopathy. What basically happened, for those who don’t have a medical degree, is basically a burst blood vessel in the eye.
The doctor treating her, Qiu Wangjian, said that it was just a superficial vessel that had burst from physical exertion, and the blood had pooled on her retina, completely blocking her vision. She literally couldn’t see past her own blood.
Don’t get too freaked out – the woman eventually regained her sight. In order to do so, however, doctors had to drill a small hole inside her retina to allow the burst blood to flow freely.
We’re not entirely sure what’s worse here, the lack of sight or the idea of someone drilling into your eye to fix it.
This woman in China isn’t the only one who has seen eye damage because of using her phone too much.
One woman in Taiwan reportedly had hundreds of tiny holes burned into her eyes from using her cellphone in a dark room at maximum brightness for years. Doctors working on her case said that it was the equivalent of putting her eyes in a microwave every day.
Our best advice? Take frequent breaks from your phone or screens, and stop when your eyes feel tired. There really are consequences.
