Poor color vision

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Treatments and drugs

By Mayo Clinic staff

No treatment can correct inherited color vision deficiencies.

If you have problems discerning shades of color, your eye doctor can determine which type of poor color vision you have and check to see if there's an associated eye disease. Eye disease isn't as common a cause of poor color vision as heredity is, but treatments that slow or reverse the course of an eye disease may help your color vision.

Wearing a colored filter over eyeglasses or a colored contact lens may enhance your perception of contrasts. But such lenses won't improve your ability to discern colors.

References
  1. Color vision deficiency. Genetics home reference. http://ghr.nlm.nih.gov/condition=colorvisiondeficiency. Accessed Nov. 22, 2008.
  2. Color vision deficiency. American Optometric Association. http://www.aoa.org/x4702.xml?prt. Accessed Nov. 25, 2008.
  3. Gobba F. Color vision impairment in workers exposed to neurotoxic chemicals. NeuroToxicology. 2003;24:693.
  4. Color vision. In: Ganong WF. Review of Medical Physiology. 22nd ed. San Francisco, Calif.: The McGraw-Hill Companies; 2005. http://www.accessmedicine.com/content.aspx?aID=707965&searchStr=color+vision+defect. Accessed Jan. 12, 2009.

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Feb. 6, 2009

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