Can optic nerve drusen cause vision loss?
Optic nerve drusen commonly cause mild side vision loss that can be detected by machines in the doctors office called “visual field” analyzers. The side vision loss is usually not appreciated by patients and not a functional concern. Rarely the drusen can cause severe, noticable side vision loss.
How does the optic disc affect vision?
The optic nerve is a bundle of more than 1 million nerve fibers that carry visual messages. You have one connecting the back of each eye (your retina) to your brain. Damage to an optic nerve can cause vision loss. The type of vision loss and how severe it is depends on where the damage occurs.
What happens if the optic disc is damaged?
Optic nerve damage is also called optic nerve atrophy or optic neuropathy. The optic nerve is the nerve that connects and transmits information between the eye and the brain. Optic nerve damage can lead to vision distortion, vision loss, and blindness.
Is drusen serious?
Small drusen may not cause problems for some people, but larger drusen can increase your risk of a medical condition called age-related macular degeneration (AMD).
Can drusen make you go blind?
Drusen do not cause total blindness, but can result in central vision loss. Central vision allows us to focus on details straight ahead. People with more soft and larger drusen, are at higher risk of experiencing this type of vision loss in the future than people with fewer and smaller drusen.
Can optic nerve drusen get worse?
Your doctor can diagnosis this condition either by an ophthalmoscopic examination or with the aid of ultrasound or computer tomography (CT) scanning. Will the drusen get worse? The number and size of the optic disc drusen tend to increase over time.
Can drusen make you blind?
Can you go blind from drusen?
What causes drusen in the eyes?
Drusen is a German word that means “rock” or “geode.” They are like tiny pebbles of debris under the retina. The cause of the drusen deposits is related to a type of “garbage” disposal problem. Retinal cells dump unwanted material, and immune cells normally clean up most of it.