What is Photo phobia?
The meaning of Photo phobia is fear of light. It indicates that you experience some light sensitivity. The eyes become sensitive to the light as they find it difficult to adapt to the change in light conditions.
What causes Photo phobia?
The over sensitivity to light might be caused due to artificial light or sunlight. During such times it is possible that you might like to close or squint your eyes. And, this sensitivity can also lead to headaches.
Also, diseases like cataracts, dry eyes, uveitis, glaucoma, retinal diseases, abrasion, corneal diseases, ulcer, chalazion, blepharitis, ocular herpes, relapsing fever and some other diseases can lead to photo phobia. Even if you wear your contact lenses for longer periods and often times or even using ill fitting contacts can lead to eye sensitivity.
Even other health conditions like migraines, measles, rabies, depression, injury to head, mercury poisoning can result in this eye sensitivity.
There are other causes like, having a natural feeling of fear and anxiety can also be responsible for photo sensitivity.
It can also happen due to the side-effects of using drugs like, cocaine, tropicamide, furosemide, idoxuridine, scopolamine, atropine, tetracycline and others.
What are the treatments available for Photophobia?
There are mainly two different kinds of treatment, one is behaviour therapy and the other is anti-anxiety medication.
There are also other therapies like, cognitive-behavioural therapy, psychotherapy, exposure therapy, behavioral therapy and some relaxation techniques like visualisation and controlled breathing.
There are also alternate drug therapies like using, maxalt, maxalt RPD, maxalt-MLT and rizatriptan. However, it is always wise to check with a qualified doctor, before taking any medication.
If you are experiencing photo sensitivity, then it is wise to use sunglasses, when you go out in the sun, which have UV shields or even wrap-around shields, as they are generally bigger than the normal ones.
