(Pictured above: my ChromaGen lenses in red mounted to Oakley frames)
If you are interested in purchasing or trying ChromaGen lenses for treating either colorblindness or dyslexia, use the following link to find an authorized dealer (doctor) near your area:
http://www.iseecolornow.com/find_a_doctor
My blog is usually reserved for everything gaming, but I've been passionate about another topic as well this year, and I decided it's finally time to write a non-gaming review regarding a specific type of glasses. None of my Youtube subscribers are aware of this, but I'm colorblind, and I've been that way my entire life. Early this year (around January) I purchased a set of glasses to correct my colorblindness, and after several months of wearing them, I finally have enough information and experience to write up a full review. This review will be quite detailed, and in order for me to explain how and why these glasses work, I must first explain colorblindness in detail, including my specific condition.
Note that this review was not paid for or endorsed by ChromaGen.
Colorblindness explained
Unfortunately, colorblindness is a topic that is still not fully understood by the general public (previously, myself included) even though the science and medical industries have possessed practically a full understanding of it for several decades now.
I used to believe colorblindness meant that a person could not see color at all, similar to what you see on a black-and-white TV screen, and that there was no condition in between that and normal color vision. But this belief was completely wrong. Although there are individuals who have no color vision whatsoever, that condition is incredibly rare and causes other problems as well such as suffering from a nearly blinding over-saturation of light. Most people with colorblindness fall somewhere in between seeing no color and seeing every color.
When it comes to vision, your eyes utilize two types of photoreceptor cells - rods and cones - which allow you to view the light emitted by the sun and other sources. Rods detect light in general (and are responsible for your limited night vision) whereas cones detect colors.
Colors are nothing more than three visible wavelengths of light - red, green and blue - which are detected by three corresponding cone cells contained in your eyes - red, green and blue. A person with normal color vision has all three cone cells functioning properly, and is able to view the full visible color spectrum for a human.
Although there are many different types of colorblindness, for purposes of this review, there are two specific types that must be specifically differentiated because it affects whether or not color-correcting lenses will work for you.
Colorblindness occurs through one of two defects. Either your cone cells (one or more of them) fail to work altogether, making you completely blind to specific color spectrums, or your cone cells have a defect, causing them to function, albeit improperly. In the latter scenario, you actually do see your defective color spectrum (such as green), but you see the color improperly (it may be too dark, for instance), and you have trouble with certain mixed colors containing that main color. At times, it may be difficult for you to distinguish that main color from other ones.
When a person has non-functioning cones of one or more type, that medical condition ends with the suffix "napia." When a person has improperly functioning cones, that medical condition ends with the suffix "nomaly," similar to the word anomaly, meaning abnormality.
To my knowledge, color-correcting lenses will not work for people with non-functioning cones because no lens can possibly activate non-functioning (or is it non-existent?) cone cells in your eyes. If you are truly "blind" to a certain color spectrum, glasses cannot fix that problem.
Think of it this way: prescription lenses only work for people who have some vision to begin with. Why? Because they are altering and correcting light that you can already see. But if you are completely blind, then it does no good to alter light that the eyes cannot see anyway.
But now you may be wondering why a cone cell would even be defective (as opposed to non-functioning) in the first place. Well, it turns out that some people are born with hybrid cone cells which detect a shifted or distorted view of their color spectrum. Thus, if you have a defective cone, it is a hybrid cone.
Now that we have a basic understanding of the causes of colorblindness, we can detail each condition. Depending on which color spectrum you have trouble with, your medical condition (i.e., medical term) starts with one of the following three prefixes: Deuteran (green), Protan (red) and Tritan (blue).
Thus, if you have the total inability to see the green spectrum, your condition is deuteranopia. If you merely have defective blue vision, you are tritanomaly. Here's the total breakdown of the conditions for your convenience:
- Deuteranomaly: malfunctioning green cone (common)
- Deuteranopia: missing green cone (rare)
- Protanomaly: malfunctioning red cone (rare)
- Protanopia: missing red cone (rare)
- Tritanopia: missing blue cone (very rare)
- Tritanomaly: malfunctioning blue cone (very rare)
If one of your cone cells does not function at all, you are a dichromat, meaning you only see two color spectrums. People like me who have all three cone cells, but with one malfunctioning, are anomalous trichromats. To my knowledge, color-correcting lenses only work for anomalous trichromats. Once again, this is because you cannot alter or correct a color spectrum that you cannot see in the first place.
You can read further information about these conditions here:
http://wearecolorblind.com/article/a-quick-introduction-to-color-blindness/
My condition: Protanomaly (plus astigmatism!)
Now that I've explained colorblindness, I can share my condition. First, I would like to note that I have an astigmatism and am nearsighted. I first obtained prescription lenses when I was around 8 years old to correct this problem. However, my vision wasn't too bad when I was young, and since I didn't want to be made fun of by other kids (I got enough of that as it was), I didn't really wear my glasses to school, even though I probably should have. So I mostly wore my glasses at home when I was watching TV or using a computer screen.
Although I briefly tried hard contact lenses in high school, I absolutely hated the irritation they caused, and everyone kept asking if I was wearing contacts because I was squinting all the time. So I gave up on contact lenses altogether.
But just four years ago I managed to pass my DMV renewal test without my glasses, making me safe to drive without them. However, three years ago I finally got some prescription sunglasses and started wearing them while driving (except at night). I can't believe I went so long without having prescription sunglasses. They are amazing.
Anyway, although I knew I had vision problems as a kid, I did not know I was colorblind until about 8 years ago, even though the signs were always there. I distinctly remember having problems with purple all my life since it basically looked like dark blue to me. I used to screw up purple and dark blue in elementary school all the time, and when people started correcting me on it, I simply assumed that I was either stupid or learned the color incorrectly. I never suspected that I couldn't see purple correctly. I would later have arguments with friends about the color of objects in video games, but again, I didn't give it much thought.
About 8 years ago my friend Peter then started arguing with me about the colors I was seeing, and he had me take a color dot test on my computer, which I had never done before. Panel after panel, I kept saying that I didn't see any numbers in the dots, even though Peter said he did. I didn't quite believe Peter since I didn't understand colorblindness at the time, but it didn't take too long before I started to figure out that I was in fact colorblind. However, I just assumed there was nothing I could do about it.
Then, last year around the holidays, I was talking with my sister-in-law, and when I mentioned my colorblindness, she said there were lenses which could correct that problem. I immediately started doing research into the subject and was ultimately led to various companies such as Enchroma and ChromaGen.
Before I do my actual review of the ChromaGen lenses, I'd like to specifically explain how my condition (protanomaly) works. I have problems seeing every color with red in it. This is because I see red too dark. Somehow, due to my defective hybrid red cone cells, my red spectrum is shifted toward the dark side (pun intended), and thus, I cannot see bight reds (they appear much darker than they should). Also, truly dark reds appear to me as brown or black.
Take the following image for example:
This is considered a bright red to people with normal color vision (or at least, normal red color vision). But without color-correcting lenses, the red above appears to me as this:
And without color-correcting lenses, the red below appears as a really dark brown:
Really dark red cars (burgundy, I suppose?) appear as a faded black. If I'm not wearing my glasses, I will simply assume that I'm seeing a black car.
I never knew this until I got my ChromaGen glasses, but pink is completely off for me. Some pinks simply appear gray to me, whereas others are so dark that they almost appear purple.
Below is apparently a hot pink. This is a color that I simply cannot see without glasses:
When I first saw this color correctly, I did not know what I was looking at. It kind of looked like an orange to me at first, but this was because I learned colors incorrectly as a child (through no fault of my own). Some of the lava in Super Mario Odyssey was hot pink, and I when I started seeing it with my glasses, I was totally shocked. Without my glasses, this pink appears almost as a purple, but with some of the blue perhaps taken out of it.
Without my glasses, the pink below appears as a very light gray:
However, even with my glasses, it barely appears as pink, at least on my computer screen.
Orange usually appears darker and duller than it should, although I have less of an issue spotting orange compared to other red-based colors. Purple is the most difficult color for me to see because I generally cannot see the red in it. However, sometimes I can detect that a "blue" is off to the point that I've figured out it's purple.
Without my glasses, the purple below appears to me as a somewhat dark, dull blue:
I don't have trouble with other colors aside from what I mentioned, but a really bright green on a TV screen or computer can almost look yellow to me. I have not noticed this problem much outside of TV/computer screens.
ChromaGen: my review
ChromaGen is a colored/tinted lens system that corrects one of two vision problems: either colorblindness or dyslexia. The dyslexia treatment lenses are tinted gray whereas the colorblindness treatment lenses are tinted various colors. ChromaGen has an FDA clearance to market their lenses for treating both conditions. The FDA clearance is available to read below:
https://www.accessdata.fda.gov/cdrh_docs/pdf2/K022373.pdf
Unlike Enchroma, which, to my knowledge, only offers two types of color-correcting lenses (indoor and outdoor), ChromaGen does not have a one-size-fits-all lens to correct every form of colorblindness. Instead, the company offers approximately six or eight different colored lenses to treat colorblindness. The lenses are available in contacts as well.
Also, unlike Enchroma, you cannot simply order ChromaGen lenses online. You will need to visit an authorized dealer (a doctor) who will let you try the different lenses (the monocles pictured above), and if you decide to purchase the lenses, your authorized dealer will order them to fit whatever frames you prefer.
In addition, ChromaGen lenses can be manufactured to include your prescription as well, giving you a two-in-one lens. Below is the ChromaGen brochure I received from my doctor.
In early January of this year, I visited an authorized dealer approximately one hour away from my house. Although I had asked about the lenses during my examination, the doctor wasn't too sure if they would work since at least two patients had tried them before with mixed or no results. Nonetheless, the doctor was still excited to try.
After updating my prescription, my new doctor pulled out a briefcase containing Chromagen monocles, similar to the ones pictured above. The doctor then had me view a booklet of Ishihara color dot tests while looking through each of the colored monocles. As I recall, I tried blue, green, orange and pink lenses with no effect whatsoever. I started to get worried at that point, thinking I had perhaps been duped and wasted my time.
However, when I held the red lenses up, a number suddenly appeared on one of the Ishihara plates, and my mouth hit the floor. I couldn't believe it. I then flipped the pages in the booklet and additional numbers began appearing in some, but not all, of the Ishihara plates. The doctor was as stunned as I was. None of his other patients ever had a reaction like this.
The doctor then asked me to walk around and look at things in the office. As I looked at a red sign in the office, I noticed that it appeared to change to orange, but the doctor and his staff quickly informed me that the sign was red. It turned out that I wasn't recognizing true red due to 30+ years of seeing red too dark.
The doctor then invited me outside into the parking lot of the strip mall, and I was shocked to see that a nearby sign on a building was actually red, not brown. As a car drove through the parking lot, I witnessed its brake lights shining brighter than I had ever seen before. It was almost as if the lights were popping out at me, like a 3D effect. This was due to the sudden effect on my brain, which had never seen such bright reds before.
I proceeded to order the red ChromaGen lenses with my prescription incorporated into them, and after almost four weeks, my lenses arrived on my old frames (it shouldn't normally take that long, but I got prescription lenses). I have now been wearing my ChromaGen lenses for approximately six months, and I have to say, I cannot live without them.
During my six months of experience with ChromaGen, I have been repeatedly asking everyone around me to describe certain colored objects I am viewing in order to compare our perceptions. So far, ChromaGen has not caused me to improperly describe so much as a single color. I do believe that for me, ChromaGen corrects my red levels to near normal, including colors such as pink, purple and orange. Interestingly, certain yellow street signs appear brighter than before, but yellow otherwise seems unaffected.
I have also taken several color dot tests for my own educational purposes. Enchroma offers a handy color dot test through the following link:
https://enchroma.com/pages/test
Before I obtained my ChromaGen lenses, I was diagnosed by the Enchroma test as either a mild or moderate protan (I got different results each time). However, after using my ChomaGen lenses, I am diagnosed as a mild protan at worst.
This test, however, was far more interesting:
https://www.color-blindness.com/ishihara-38-plates-cvd-test/
After taking this test with my ChromaGen lenses, I obtained a result of "not red-green colorblind" while getting only 1 plate wrong (number 6) and four of them partially correct (numbers 9, 12, 28 and 29). The results were far worse with no corrective lenses.
People who have no experience with such lenses may wonder what they are like. The best answer I can come up with is that they are like wearing colored snowboard goggles, except they cause certain colors to become much brighter, or to change altogether. There's no question that wearing colored lenses feels weird at first, but after a while, your brain gets used to it and starts to disregard the colored tint on everything.
However, the lenses do have a noticeable side effect. For me, the red lenses cause greens to become substantially darker. Blues also become darker, but not as much as greens. This is due to the lenses filtering out certain overlapping areas of the color spectrum that are confusing the hybrid cones. This problem, however, is easily solved by simply peaking over your glasses to see the correct level of negatively affected colors.
In addition, it takes time and patience to learn all of the new colors you are suddenly seeing. I did not recognize several "true" colors when I first saw them, and I was incredibly confused by purple, which looked similar to the pinks I had viewed all my life. But half the fun of wearing these lenses is asking people around to describe colors and seeing if your perception matches theirs. Unfortunately, you will still find yourself in the unique position of trying to recognize colors through two different sets of eyes (with and without your glasses).
The lenses are also essentially useless in very low light conditions. This is because rods are responsible for night vision, not cones, and rods do not detect color. However, the lenses are perfectly suitable for watching TV or computer screens in the dark since such screens are inherently well lit.
Although I have no experience with the competing Enchroma lenses, I know that Enchroma advises against wearing its lenses while driving. I find this claim to be total bullshit, but in all fairness to the company, it notes that "we are required per FDA labelling regulations to warn users that our glasses are not for use while driving."
The reason this disclaimer is bullshit (excluding legal reasons, which I understand perfectly) is that color-correcting lenses actually make you a substantially safer driver by helping you see the correct colors of various lights, whether stop lights or brake lights. The last thing you want to do is run a red light because you thought it was green (I recently heard a story about this from a friend's father).
Years ago, before I started wearing ChromaGen lenses, my father used to accuse me of having terrible depth perception because I would brake fairly late while driving. It turned out that I simply could not see brake lights on incredibly bright days. ChromaGen lenses completely fixed this problem and caused me to see brake lights in all conditions. Therefore, I actually recommend wearing these lenses while driving during the day time.
Depending on the color of your lenses, it may also be possible to wear them for night-time driving, but this varies on a case-by-case basis. My red lenses are probably the darkest of all the ChromaGen lenses, and I wear them for night driving only because they are also my prescription lenses. Although I feel they are safe for me to wear at night, I make sure to be extra careful with my nighttime driving. A lighter color lens such as green would probably be safe for nighttime driving since various companies already offer nighttime "sunglasses" in yellow, although it's disputed whether such yellow lenses actually help you see better at night.
If you are interested in obtaining ChromaGen lenses to aid you in passing the colorblind tests for certain jobs (electrician, cop, fireman, pilot), check with the testing office first to see whether these lenses will even be permitted during the test. Otherwise, you might waste your money.
ChromaGen lenses are not cheap, but are comparable to Enchroma, coming in at around $300 or so. My lenses cost around $500 because I incorporated a prescription into them, but prescription lenses alone already cost $200-$300, so I didn't mind the premium.
In addition, as already mentioned, ChromaGen lenses can be mounted to any frames or even made into contact lenses, so long as you don't the mind the weird looks from perhaps walking around with red or pink eyes. If you are truly interested in the lenses after reading this review, then use the link at the top of this page to find an authorized dealer who will allow you to test the lenses.
In short, I highly recommend these lenses.
