I recently discovered that I’m color blind to a certain degree. There are several degrees of color blindness, and this congenital disease affects mostly males (up to 7% of the total male population).
The test you need to take at your eye clinic in order to determine whether you are color blind or not is called an Ishihara Test. You will be shown a number of slides and you will need to determine what number is shown on each slide.
If you want a free quick test to determine whether you are color blind or not, you can use the Enchroma color blindness test.
My test results put me in the mild deutan category. Here’s the description of moderate deutan color blindness:
Deutans are people with deuteranomaly, a type of red-green color blindness in which the green cone doesn’t detect enough green but is too sensitive to yellows, oranges, and reds.
As a result, greens, yellows, oranges, reds, and browns may appear similar, especially in low light. It can also be difficult to tell the difference between blues and purples, or pinks and grays
If color blindness causes you problems on a daily basis, or if you just want to experience what the world looks like to the vast majority of people, Enchrome makes special sunglasses that aim to correct color blindness. There are several videos on YouTube capturing the emotions of color blind people trying them out for the first time; they’re quite interesting.
Personally, my color blindness hasn’t significantly affected my daily life. In fact, I didn’t even know about the condition until I visited a museum that had some basic information about color blindness on display, and I realised that I couldn’t see the numbers shown, meaning that I had some degree of color blindness.
I am curious, however, to try out the Enchroma glasses, especially in a sports context. I’d love to see whether correcting my color blindness would help me in my padel play. It would also be interesting to know whether specific padel court surfaces are better and provide more contrast with the ball for a color blind person.
Anyone else tested positive for color blindness? Has it affected you in your daily life? Let me know in the comments section below!
Yes I’m Jean Galea ^^ I’m aware of that since … forever haha (I even did a talk in WCEU 2014 about that :p)
Indeed, I remember that one 🙂
Welcome to the club 🤣
If you end up buying the Enchroma glasses, let me know. I’d love to try them, even though I don’t have much hope they’ll work on me.
Antonio Villegas I probably won’t get them, but if I’m in the US and encounter them in a shop I’ll be happy to try them.
My result from Enchroma link: Normal Colour Vision, I also tried the Ishihara link and my result is: I can Successfully Identify Shapes that are typically hidden to Protan, Deutan, and Tritan color deficiencies. Very interesting article! Thanks Jean
Welcome! That’s good, it mostly affects men.
Thanks to the links you provided I was able to affirm what I assumed, that I have normal color vision. Good read, appreciate you sharing, Jean Galea.
I’ve known that I’m colour blind for many years now, probably since I started using internet and took a similar test. My result today was STRONG DEUTAN. No, it has not affected my daily life as far as I can tell though I do use the fact that I’m colour blind to avoid questions about colours.
so you never noticed traffic lights colors ?? @jean
There are different types of color blindness and several degrees of it.
Mine doesn’t affect my vision of traffic lights, so I can drive without any problems.