Zara is a 9 years old girl from Bulgaria, with achromatopsia – gene identified for it is PDE6C. The first symptoms were noticed when she was 10 months of age. It was the nystagmus, then the severe light sensitivity, later the low vision. She had lazy eye which turned into strabismus. Of course, she cannot see colors, she sees tints of gray and black and white.

To cope with the low vision she uses mini telescopic glasses, which help her improve her vision from 20/200 to 20/50. They can be used both for far and near. Because of the light sensitivity – she needs her red tinted filter, and almost always wears a hat outside. For the colors we’ve purchased a special filter (not Enchroma) which helps with the better contrast and this in term helps with better distinguishing colors. The filter showed about 60% improvement on the color blindness tests. She also tried Colorlite lenses, but the result with them was not that good.