Medical science knows of hundreds of eye diseases, and they’re some of the most common conditions in the world. Many are treatable, especially when caught early.
What are eye diseases?
Eye diseases are conditions that affect any part of your eye, and include conditions that affect the structures immediately around your eyes. These conditions can be acute (meaning they develop quickly) or chronic (meaning they develop more slowly and last a long time).
Your eyeball itself is where most eye diseases happen, but it isn’t the only place. Eye diseases also include conditions that can affect your eye muscles, eye socket, eyelids, or the skin and muscles immediately around your eyes.
How common are eye diseases?
In general, eye diseases and vision disorders are extremely common. The World Health Organization estimates that over 2.2 billion people have some form of vision impairment or blindness.
One reason that eye diseases are so common is that your eyes don’t exist in isolation from the rest of your body. In fact, the opposite is true. Many conditions that affect your eyes happen because of or in connection with conditions affecting other body systems. That’s why there are hundreds of different conditions that can affect your eyes.
