Eyes are the windows of your health. Just like your nails, your eyes often work as the primary indicators in detection of various underlying conditions. Your ophthalmologist can sometimes detect more than eye related diseases. Changes in the appearance of your eyes can signal at least 7 types of diseases in general that are not related to your eyes. Let’s see what your eyes tell you about your body –
Diabetes
Both type 1 and type 2 diabetes starts with a persistent blurry vision. The lens of the eye swell because of high blood sugar and this turn affects your ability to see. This can easily be dealt by getting your blood sugar back into the normal range.
But blood sugar and retina has even deeper relations. Prolonged untreated diabetes can lead to the onset or worsening of diabetic retinopathy. Diabetic retinopathy affects the capillaries in the retina leading to permanent blindness.
Hypertension
Just like diabetes, hypertension changes the structure of capillaries and other intricate eye parts. A change in structure of eye can lead to anomalous vision and decreased vision in severe cases. Vision loss can be gradual or sudden due to bleeding in the eye. The blood pressure should be maintained in the healthy range to counter complications related to eyes.
Autoimmune disease
Autoimmune diseases are characterised by berserk immune responses. Many a times the immune cells attack the healthy cells of your own body mistaking them as enemy pathogens. Autoimmune diseases like arthritis, sjogren’s syndrome often start with dry eyes. Other symptoms are joint pain, back pain, urination problems and IBS.
Stroke
Stroke can result in complete loss of vision temporarily or permanently. It can be the symptom of ischemic changes in the brain or blockage in an artery of the eye. Evaluation of parameters such as lipids, sugars and blood pressure can be used to determine the site and cause to help in proper treatment.
Multiple sclerosis
Do you see black or blind spots? Though there can be more than one underlying reason for this. But sudden temporary loss of vision, or blind spots and black spots can be indicators of a multiple sclerosis too. This condition affects your nervous system as well as your optic nerve. MS can be treated by a neurologist and the procedure starts with MRI of the brain and spine.
Liver
The white of your eye or the sclera is the indicator of your health. A yellow sclera is an indicator of liver related disease. In fact the early signs of Jaundice come with the yellowing of sclera as the high level of bilirubin give a yellowish tint to the skin and sclera. The high levels of bilirubin are made by our liver whenever it is damaged or inflamed.Changes in the appearance of your eyes should not be taken lightly. A mandatory diagnosis and treatment is recommended in such cases.