One in five people who experience sight loss develop Charles Bonnet Syndrome.
A charity in the United Kingdom has claimed that over a million people could be living with a medical condition that is a mystery for a large number of medical practitioners. As per a report in Independent, the charity named Esme's Umbrella carried out the research about Charles Bonnet Syndrome (CBS) that can cause vivid and frightening hallucinations. CBS is often linked to eye conditions such as age-related macular degeneration or cataracts, according to National Health Service (NHS) of the UK.
The charity conducted a poll of 1,100 health experts, including optometrists, and found that 37 per cent of them were not aware of the CBS, the Independent report said.
The loss of sight - 60 per cent or more - stops the regular messages from the eye to the brain, causing people to see things that are not real.
The outlet further said that one in five people who experience sight loss develop it, meaning at least one million people in the UK are living with the condition.
Independent spoke to Nina Chesworth, who is is living with the condition. "I first started experiencing the symptoms of CBS straight after I lost sight in my left eye after a traumatic incident. After waking up from surgery, I was seeing a lot of blaring colours, but I was just told it was my mind playing tricks on me," she said.
"As time went on the colours began to develop into shapes, then ghost like images, faces which were Picasso-esque, zombies and animals," Ms Chesworth added.
She said this happened four and half years ago and she still hasn't received the official diagnosis.
Esme Umbrella's research has also debunked the myth that CBS is a mental health issue and just a natural side effect of sight loss. According to NHS, there is no cure for the syndrome. It added that the frequency of hallucinations decreases over time.