• Question: Why is it that some people are colour blind in one eye but not the other?

    Asked by Sam to Aaron, David, Elaine, Sarah, Zoe on 15 Nov 2014.
    • Photo: David Foley

      David Foley answered on 15 Nov 2014:

      You can develop problems with your colour vision as a result of an illness, a side-effect of a medicine and exposure to certain chemicals or a head injury, for example. This is called acquired colour blindness. This can affect each eye differently, for example if you have optic nerve disease it may be confined to one eye. Also, the condition may develop at different rates in each eye and cause differences in colour perception between your eyes. However, if you have good vision in both eyes, and are colour blind in just one, you should still be able to see colour well.

    • Photo: Sarah Ashwood

      Sarah Ashwood answered on 15 Nov 2014:

      This is because sometimes colour-blindness can be an issue specifically with your optic nerve, and as you have one of those linked to each eye, you can have the colour-blindness only affect one eye.

    • Photo: Zoe Roberts

      Zoe Roberts answered on 17 Nov 2014:

      Each eye, although they look similar and work together are 2 separate organs in the body. If one becomes injured or damaged in someway colour blindness can occur to that eye but the non injured eye will continue to function as a eye that sees colour.

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