High blood pressure can't directly cause retinal detachment. But if you have high blood pressure, you are at a higher risks of retinal detachment.
Damage to the retina from high blood pressure is called hypertensive retinopathy. It occurs as the existing high blood pressure causes changes to the microvasculature of the retina. Some of the first findings in the disease are flame hemorrhages and cotton wool spots.
The most common cause of tractional retinal detachment is diabetic retinopathy — an eye condition in people with diabetes. Diabetic retinopathy damages blood vessels in the retina and can scar your retina. As the scars get bigger, they can pull on your retina and detach it from the back of your eye.
Hypertensive optic neuropathy, specifically, presents as optic disk swelling. The signs include flame shaped hemorrhages at the disc margin, blurred disc margins, congested retinal veins, papilledema, and secondary macular exudates. Hard exudates can deposit in the macula causing a macular star.
Bleeding into the vitreous can have many causes, including retinal tears and detachments, diabetes, high blood pressure (hypertension), blocked blood vessels, and injury. Blood cells are seen as floaters.
In other words, once blood pressure rises above normal, subtle but harmful brain changes can occur rather quickly—perhaps within a year or two.
If you have uncontrolled high blood pressure, you may be more likely to develop several conditions that could damage your eyesight. Keeping your blood pressure under control lowers your risk of vision problems and helps you avoid heart disease, stroke, kidney damage, and other serious health conditions.
As mentioned, the beta-blockers in hypertension medication unintentionally block signals from the brain from reaching the tear glands, so tear volume decreases. That upsets the proper tear film composition necessary for lubrication. Untreated dry eye can lead to cornea damage and chronic eye infections.
If you frequently experience stress you might wonder, can stress cause retinal detachment? The simple answer is no, stress cannot cause retinal detachment. Retinal detachment is due to tears in the peripheral retina.
Certain factors can increase your risk for developing a retinal tear or detachment: Extreme nearsightedness (high myopia) Previous cataract surgery. Severe eye injury.
A retinal detachment may cause permanent blindness over a matter of days and should be considered an eye emergency until evaluated by a retina specialist. Most retinal detachments occur suddenly and can threaten the central vision within hours or days.
Retinal detachment is a painless condition, but it usually causes noticeable visual cues. For instance, the sudden appearance of floaters, or objects that appear to drift through the visual field, can indicate that retinal detachment may occur.
Usually, it takes three months after seeing a first “floater” for the vitreous to detach from the retina completely. Retinal detachment is more common in people over age 40. But it can happen at any age.
Don't do things where you might move your head. This includes moving quickly, lifting anything heavy, or doing activities such as cleaning or gardening. You will probably need to take 2 to 4 weeks off from work.
Can a detached retina heal on its own? Very rarely, retinal detachments are not noticed by the patient and can heal on their own. The vast majority of retinal detachments progress to irreversible vision loss if left untreated so it is important to monitor any changes noticed in your vision.
Some may think that vitreous detachment, or the little dark floaters in your vision, are caused by dry eye because the conditions share some common risk factors. However, there isn't any evidence that points to dry eyes causing vitreous detachment.
It's important to remember that high blood pressure is not usually a death sentence. As long as you're regularly working with your doctor on treatment and managing your blood pressure levels, you will likely live a long life.
Your blood pressure is considered high (stage 1) if it reads 130/80. Stage 2 high blood pressure is 140/90 or higher. If you get a blood pressure reading of 180/110 or higher more than once, seek medical treatment right away. A reading this high is considered “hypertensive crisis.”
Persistent high blood pressure can increase your risk of a number of serious and potentially life-threatening health conditions, such as: heart disease. heart attacks. strokes.
In addition, the changes of nerve activity in specific brain regions of RD patients increase the risk of brain dysfunction related diseases, which is helpful to understand the pathological mechanism of vision decline or related diseases in RD patients.