Damage to the retina from high blood pressure is called
Hypertensive retinopathy occurs when high blood pressure causes the retinal blood vessels to thicken and narrow, reducing blood flow. The condition may also trigger swelling of the retina and optic nerve and could cause white spots to appear on the retina. These changes can cause vision loss, which is often permanent.
The higher the blood pressure and the longer it has been high, the more severe the damage. Symptoms may include: double vision or dim vision, headaches, visual disturbances, and sometimes sudden vision loss.
HTN affects the eye causing 3 types of ocular damage: choroidopathy, retinopathy, and optic neuropathy.
The signs of hypertensive retinopathy include constricted and tortuous arterioles, retinal hemorrhage (Figure 1-3), hard exudates (Figure 2), cotton wool spots (Figure 1 & 3), retinal edema, and papilledema (Figure 3).
Signs and symptoms of hypertensive retinopathy
Symptoms may include: Double or cloudy vision. Headaches. Loss of vision, when the condition has progressed significantly.
Symptoms and Signs of Hypertensive Retinopathy
Symptoms usually do not develop until late in the disease and include blurred vision or visual field defects. In the early stages, funduscopy identifies arteriolar constriction, with a decrease in the ratio of the width of the retinal arterioles to the retinal venules.
High blood pressure can cause floaters in your vision due to retinal haemorrhages or substances leaking out of the blood vessels. Increased pressure on the blood vessels can block blood flow through a vein or artery, leading to sudden, painless vision loss.
What are the symptoms? The symptoms of a hypertensive emergency include headache, chest pain, trouble breathing, numbness, blurry vision, and confusion.
In other words, once blood pressure rises above normal, subtle but harmful brain changes can occur rather quickly—perhaps within a year or two. And those changes may be hard to reverse, even if blood pressure is nudged back into the normal range with treatment.
What are the symptoms of optic neuropathy? Symptoms that might result from optic neuropathy include pain when moving the eye, blurring, blind spots, reduced colour vision or complete loss of vision. Vision loss might be gradual, or it might be total and sudden.
Ocular hypertension usually doesn't cause any symptoms. You probably won't know you have high eye pressure until an eye care specialist diagnosis it during your eye exam. Without having your eye pressure tested by an eye care specialist, there's usually no way for you to feel or know that you have high eye pressure.
In most cases, the retina will heal if the blood pressure is controlled. However, some people with grade 4 retinopathy will have lasting damage to the optic nerve or macula.
There is no cure for ocular hypertension. However, with careful monitoring and treatment, when necessary, you can decrease the risk of damage to your eyes.
Causes of ocular hypertension include making too much fluid (aqueous humor) or having a blockage or other problem with your eye's drainage system, called the anterior chamber angle. The drainage angle is near the front of your eye, located between the iris and the cornea.
Stage 3: Focal and diffuse arteriolar narrowing is more obvious, and severe Retinal haemorrhages may be present. Stage 4: In this last hypertensive retinopathy stage, all the previously listed abnormalities may be present, along with retinal oedema, hard exudates, and optic disc oedema.
There is no cure for these conditions, any vision loss that occurs cannot be reversed. Treatment to reduce the risks of developing retinal artery damage include: Controlling blood pressure. Reducing cholesterol levels.
Doctors use an ophthalmoscope to shine light through the pupil and examine the back of the eye and retina. They check the health of the blood vessels and look for signs of narrowing or leaking fluid.
Optometrists and ophthalmologists can diagnose hypertensive retinopathy by completing an eye exam. Vision and eye health will be examined by the eye will also be dilated. Special drops instilled into the eye cause the pupil to become larger so that the internal structures of the eye.
Hypertensive retinopathy and diabetic retinopathy, while being similar in some features, show up differently on the retina. Hypertensive retinopathy has relatively few hemorrhages and a greater number of “cotton wool” spots than diabetic retinopathy, although there is little to differentiate the two for the patient.
The early stages of diabetic retinopathy usually don't have any symptoms. Some people notice changes in their vision, like trouble reading or seeing faraway objects. These changes may come and go.