Medications
In some drugs, that lengthy list of side effects may include blindness.
“There are some medications that cause deposits on the retina that can, over a long period of time, impair the vision,” Assumpta Madu, M.D., an ophthalmologist at NYU Langone, told Women’s Health Magazine.
Smoking
It’s never too late to kick this nasty habit! The CDC, reports that “a leading cause of vision loss is now clearly linked to smoking.”
In fact, tobacco users are twice as likely to develop macular degeneration – which destroys the central vision that you need to read, drive, and see people’s faces — when compared with a nonsmoker.
Smokers are also two to three times more likely to develop cataracts – which causes blurry vision — when compared to nonsmokers.
The Sun
Staring directly at the sun CAN lead to blindness. It’s called solar retinopathy.
While it would take several minutes of gazing at the heart of our solar system for it to cause permanent impairment, enough damage (solar radiation) to the retina can harm the macula, a tiny substructure of the retina responsible for much of your central detail vision, the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences reports.
Tip: Protect your eyes from the harmful rays by never staring at the sun directly with the naked eye and always wear shades when you expect to spend long periods of time in the sunlight.