Aside for that one particularly gross time where my stye exploded and the drying pus welded my eye shut whilst I was asleep, my vision has given me no hassle whatsoever which is something that us lot with perfect sight truly take for granted. After all, so many bad things could’ve happened yet haven’t; we haven’t accidentally mistaken our partners for their grandparents, we’ve never had gonorrhoea of the eyeball like the perpetual-arsehole War Machine and a bug hasn’t chewed through our tissue rendering us unable to see after leaving a contact lens in for too long so we should be very thankful. Colour blindness isn’t something that’s easy to imagine for those of us who haven’t experienced it first hand and we can assume that it’s pretty hard to live with on a daily basis.
In Britain there are around 2.7 million individuals who live with various forms of colour blindness, with 1 in 12 of the world’s male population and 1 in 200 women being unable to witness the full colour spectrum. The condition is mostly hereditary although occasionally it can arise either through getting older as an unfortunate side effect of other diseases such as diabetes or multiple sclerosis. The most common type of colour blindness is red/green colour blindness where the sufferer has trouble seeing any or all colours that include red or green pigments although in some extremely rare cases the person is completely unable to identify any colour at all.
Luckily for all your colour blind friends who have a spare £250 or so lying about, the geniuses who work at EnChroma have invented a range of glasses which boost the saturation and enable colour blind people to see the full colour spectrum for the first time in their lives which is honestly far better investment than a new Playstation or a pair of designer shoes that are bound to go out of style in about five minutes.
According to their website, scientist Don McPherson accidentally created the special EnChroma lens formula following making some lenses that are quite similar for those recovering from laser eye surgery. Their site also explains exactly how they perfected the technology in order to produce the range of eye wear that are currently on the market, but we know you can’t be bothered to traipse through a thousand copy and pasted words full of science-related jargon that we barely understand ourselves so if you’re genuinely interested want to find out more then click here to go and read up on the science behind the magic goggles.
In the video below, four colour blind subjects recall events in their lives where their disability has negatively affected them – including being put off from following creative paths, thinking themselves as stupid, getting made fun of for not knowing certain shades or not fully experiencing pictures that their own children have drawn for them. After a bunch of science men then tell us how they magicked up the idea, the glasses are handed over to the gang and they’re separately sent off to witness various full-colour objects and well up over all the shades they’re missing out on in their everyday existence for the very first time. It’s pretty upsetting when you realise that the only way they’ll ever be able to see full colour is if they wear the lenses forever, but at least now we know that the option is there. Watch it for yourself here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ea_xOqNvntA
If you’re after another heart warming sight-related tale, watch this video in which a blind mind is able to see his wife for the first time ever thanks to some bionic eye wizardry. Hits us right in the feels.
