The human body is often described as a simple bag of meat. Our skin contains all of our organs within it, and our muscles and bones give us structure and allow us to move around. However, without some way to perceive our surroundings, there would be little or no way for us to control these bodies. Our five senses allow us to pilot this bag of meat through the world and use it to keep ourselves alive and healthy. Without the ability to see, hear, or smell prey or predators, for instance, an animal won’t last long, even if it has the ability to move to escape or intercept the life form. When one of the organs or tissues held within the skin is damaged, if there is no sensory system to tell the life form about it, it won’t know to avoid or try and repair the damage. All of our senses are important in ways similar to these.
If you are trying to find an expert optometrist in Smyrna, it may mean that you are having some problems with your sense of sight. There are many different problems that can arise in the visual perception system, not all of which can noticeably affect sight at first. While it’s hard to say which of the five senses is the most important, most people list touch, sight, and sound as their top three. Losing your sight, therefore, is a significant impairment.
There are many common visual symptoms that you may notice, many of which could indicate a larger problem. As an optometrist in Smyrna will probably tell you, in bad cases this larger problem could result in partial loss of sight, or even blindness. A few symptoms are flashes or flickers of light, shadowy objects floating in the visual field, distorted vision, or double vision.
Your retina contains photoreceptors which detect light. When these photoreceptors, or the parts of the brain responsible for interpreting their signals, act out of turn, it can cause light flashes or flickering lights. In old age, these symptoms can indicate vitreous tugging, or if they are persistent they can mean inflammation or another problem.
Double vision which disappears when one eye is covered is known as binocular diplopia, This usually happens when the muscles that move the eye are damaged or act irregularly. Either of these described symptoms should prompt a visit to an optometrist in Smyrna if experienced.