Go to an ophthalmologist and they should be able to give you information on it. If you want to know if you if you carry the gene for it, you can get your DNA sequenced. All of this can be really stressful, but having answers is better than dealing with uncertainty.

In Australia he is also classed as legally blind, doesn’t drive and hasn’t worked for over 15 years

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I have this family of disease I have Lebers Congenital Amerosis.

I have RP and my grandmother slowly lost her eyesight when she was in her 20s. We tried to hide this fact the first time I went to get tested because we didn't want them to quickly diagnose me without investigating).

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When we asked the genetic specialist the second time she said it was highly unlikely two people that close together have RP (I kind of forget the reasoning behind this but I believe she said she found it hard to believe that my great grandparents happen to both be carriers and then my mom happened to be a carrier, that's just a lot of "luck" so close together). And she's probably right as my grandmother could of lost her eyesight due to a number of reasons. When I asked about having kids, she told me if I married someone who wasn't a carrier, the chances the kids would get RP would be only slightly higher than chances of two random people being carriers.

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But ask to test peripheral vision and do a color blindness test. I know one of the first signs is also poor night vision (which was my big sign). Ask your dad what the first parts of sight he lost.

Yes, they can let your blood get tested for mutated genes and say exactly what kind of RP you have (if any).

When you're 22 and still can see normal in the dark, you have a good chance of not having it at all.

I have RP and am blind at night since I'm 18 years old.
The night blindness mostly starts in the late teenie years and is almost everytime the first symptom.

I believe condition is generally X chromosome linked, with women being "carriers" and men being the ones actually afflicted. So if you are male, you most likely don't have it. If female, you are likely a carrier and will pass it on to your children. I definitely recommend getting the genetic testing done. I grew up thinking I had RP, but after the gene testing we figured out it's CHM, a similar condition.

I’m not sure how it works in Australia, but here in Canada, my sibling got tested for it. Our maternal grandfather and a few of his siblings have RP and so does my aunt. They did an electroretinogram (tiny electrodes were attached to contact lenses) and it measures electrical activity of the photoreceptors. They also did visual field testing, where a dot of light flashes and move around and you press a button every time you see it.

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