When you're diagnosed with hypertension, you may not be thinking about the potential impact on your eye health. However, there are many small blood vessels in your eyes and they can swell and become damaged when hypertension is left untreated or not kept under control. Read on to learn about three eye conditions you are susceptible to developing when you have hypertension.
Retinopathy
Hypertension can restrict blood flow to the retina at the back of the eyes and lead to retinopathy. This is characterised by damage to the blood vessels, which leads to you developing visual disturbances, such as blurred vision and loss of peripheral vision. Retinopathy can be treated with laser surgery to remove scar tissue and damaged blood vessels that are impeding your vision, but the condition will recur if your blood pressure is not well controlled.
Choroidopathy
Choroidopathy occurs when damaged blood vessels at the back of the eye begin to leak fluid. This fluid can build up behind the retina and interfere with the transmission of images between the eye and the brain. Distorted vision and a dim spot in your central vision are typical symptoms of choroidopathy. The condition can be treated with laser surgery to seal the leaking blood vessels, and eye injections can be helpful for encouraging excess fluid to drain from the retina.
Optic Neuropathy
When hypertension causes your blood vessels to swell you can experience restricted blood flow to the optic nerve, which sends messages from the eye to the brain. This restricted blood flow can damage nerve cells and lead to partial or complete loss of vision. It's not always possible to reverse nerve damage, but there are some treatment options available, such as corticosteroids, that can prevent further damage from occurring.
These three eye conditions can be diagnosed during a standard eye exam. Make your optometrist aware that you have hypertension and they will use an ophthalmoscope, which is a magnifying tool with a light attached to it, to look at the structures at the back of your eye including the retina and optic nerve. A slit lamp may also be used as part of your eye exam, and this provides highly magnified images of the inside of your eye, which makes it a useful diagnostic tool for investigating eye disease.
If you have hypertension and are overdue for an eye test, contact your optometrist, as they can detect signs of early eye disease before you have any noticeable symptoms. Schedule your eye exam now.