If you wish to preserve your vision throughout your life, it’s crucial to maintain a healthy general state of health. In addition to avoiding direct sunlight and accidental injuries, a healthy diet, regular exercising, and regular exams can go a long way toward preventing many eye health issues.
Regular visits to the eye doctor have numerous advantages besides maintaining healthy eyes. Examining the eye, retina, and optic nerve lens may reveal conditions that affect the system, such as high blood pressure and diabetes, usually before any other symptoms occur. Eye examinations are one of the few exams that eye specialists can inspect the body without performing exams for blood, invasive imaging, or surgery.
Medical Conditions and Eye Health
Many patients are affected by a variety of eye problems. Some of these problems are associated with underlying medical conditions that do not have anything to do with the eyes in the initial place. Let’s consider a few different diseases and how they affect eyesight and overall health.
1. Diabetes
Diabetic retinal diseases are a problem that may develop in those who have had diabetes for a prolonged time and have not been treated. This condition, linked to excess blood sugar, causes the eye’s blood vessels to bleed into the retina. This could lead to severe visual loss or possibly blindness in severe cases. Furthermore, cataracts and Glaucoma are eye diseases that are more prevalent in people with diabetes.
You can search the web and find out more about the different types of eye disorders and their needed treatments.
2. Hypertension
High blood pressure can cause severe damage to blood vessels, just as that high blood sugar can. Because of the thickening of the retinal blood vessels brought on by hypertension, less blood can reach the retina.
The retina is a fluid source, and damage to the optic nerve and macular edema may result from a lack of oxygen supply to your eye. Hypertensive retinal retinopathy is the medical name used to describe this problem.
3. Multiple Sclerosis
The immune system fights against the myelin sheath, which protects the optic nerve and facilitates the quick and precise transfer of visual signals from the eye to the brain—inflammation of the optic nerve and rapid loss of vision result from the signaling disruption. Optic neuritis is the medical term for this condition.
The symptoms of this condition include difficulty in moving your eyes without discomfort, blurred vision, blurred vision as well as a hole at the center of your vision, a headache, and in the extreme, blindness.
4. Autoimmune Conditions
Eyes are susceptible to various autoimmune disorders. The immune system can attack the eye’s tissues, as shown in rheumatoid arthritis (RA) and systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE). Autoimmune diseases typically manifest initially with symptoms that affect the eyes.
A patient’s eyes might be itchy, red, or frequently dry. Patients might experience eye pain and sensitivity to light, changes in the quality of vision, or even loss of vision if the condition isn’t detected or treated. This shows that eye care is crucial to you and your family.
5. Thyroid Disease
In the case of a hyperactive thyroid, such as Graves’ disease, the antibodies are also directed at the cells of the eye area since their receptors are similar to thyroid cell receptors. Graves disease can affect the eyes, causing ophthalmopathy or orbitopathy.
The signs and symptoms of the conditions described above are blurred, double-vision effect eyes that are swollen, redness and inflammation of the conjunctiva, and proptosis. Compression of the optic nerve is a problem that causes an inability to entirely reduce the pupil and corneal ulcers. In the most extreme cases, blindness can result from this condition.