Warning: Looking at your smartphone while lying in bed could wreck your vision.
Two women went temporarily blind from constantly checking their phones in the dark, says doctors who are now alerting others to the unusual phenomenon.
The solution: Make sure to use both eyes when looking at your smartphone screen in the dark.
In Thursday’s New England Journal of Medicine, doctors detailed the cases of two women, ages 22 and 40, who experienced “transient smartphone blindness” for months.
The women complained of recurring episodes of temporary vision loss of up to 15 minutes. They initially were subjected to a variety of medical exams, MRI scans and heart tests. Yet doctors couldn’t find anything to explain the problem.
But minutes after walking into an eye specialist’s office, the mystery was solved. “I simply asked them, ‘What exactly were you doing when this happened?’ ” recalled Gordon Plant of Moorfield’s Eye Hospital in London.
He explained that both women typically looked at their smartphones with only one eye while resting on their side in bed in the dark. (The other eye was covered by a pillow)
Ulomka Tip: As an extra precaution, reduce the light intensity of your smartphone screen.
