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Your symptom: Changes in vision.
Best-case scenario: If your gadget screens are causing you problems, it's likely just normal age-related vision issues. Most people start to have difficulty seeing at close distances starting in their early to mid-40s, according to the American Optometric Association.
Why it could be more serious: A sudden, painless loss of peripheral vision could be a sign of a stroke, says Emily Graubart, MD, assistant professor of ophthalmology at the Emory Eye Center. Women are at greater risk of stroke than men, and strokes are not an old person's problem: Between 1988 and 2004,
stroke rates among women 35 to 54 years old tripled. Keep tabs on your floaters too. A small, occasional floater a few times a week is normal, but large, frequent ones, especially if they're associated with flashing lights, can mean you're at risk of a retinal detachment, which can lead to permanent vision loss if you don't treat it fast enough. A study in
JAMA found that 14 percent of people who saw an ophthalmologist for floaters or flashing lights were experiencing a retinal detachment.
