There is currently no effective treatment for inherited colour blindness. Some colour blind people have found some coloured filters and some lenses might help them to distinguish between some colour combinations in certain situations, whilst others report no effect or that they can cause further confusion. We do not endorse the use of coloured lenses or ‘colour blind’ glasses for use in the workplace, in schools/for education or in any situation which could impact upon safety e.g. driving and we recommend extreme caution be taken when using any type of glasses or lenses to ‘help’ with colour discrimination.
There are many articles on the effectiveness (or not) of glasses which supposedly cure colour blindness, see for example
Psychology Today – Scientists Debunk The Effectiveness of Enchroma Glasses for Colour Blind People, Gismodo’s Can These Glasses Help The Colour Blind?, and 219 magazine’s Seeing Red .
If you are interested in the science you can read the full Psychology Today scientific research paper.
There is hope on the horizon for a ‘cure’ for inherited colour vision deficiency using gene technology – for more information visit www.neitzvision.com. This will involve injecting genetic material into the eye so is not for the faint-hearted! At the moment there have been no trials on humans but the process has been proved to work in monkeys.
For acquired colour vision deficiency, once the cause has been established and treated, it is possible that your vision may return to normal.
