What Your Eyes Can Tell You About Your Health

Everything from allergies to autoimmune diseases can present with ocular symptoms first. And while red eyes, discharge, itching, light sensitivity or visual changes can be uncomfortable enough to bring patients in to see their optometrists, some symptoms, such as optic nerve or vascular changes, take place inside the eye and can go unnoticed. This is why it's important for adults to have an eye exam every two years. 

'There are so many conditions we can find that don't have symptoms, so coming in every couple of years allows us to look for trends or changes,' explains Craig Meckelborg, an optometrist with FYidoctors in Calgary. Eye symptoms combined with a patient's medical history will alert doctors to possible systemic diseases. For example, Rodovich was a smoker who had previously experienced a 'hypertensive episode' ' a spike in blood pressure ' two risk factors for stroke. (She quit smoking after her stroke.) 

What's more, women are more susceptible to certain conditions that can present in the eyes, such as multiple sclerosis (MS) and thyroid dysfunction, says Setareh Ziai, an assistant professor of ophthalmology at the University of Ottawa Eye Institute.

Watch for these additional symptoms and talk to your doctor if you have any concerns:

1. Bulging eyes： can be a sign of thyroid eye disease, a condition related to autoimmune thyroid disease that is marked by swelling of the muscles and tissues of the eye and orbit.

2. Pupil abnormalities：where one pupil is larger than the other or where one pupil reacts inappropriately when exposed to light ' could signify an underlying medical problem.

3. Yellow eyes： can signal liver disease. Both hepatitis and cirrhosis can turn the whites of the eyes yellow.

4. Redness, pain and inflammation of the ocular coats： a condition called scleritis, can be a symptom of a number of autoimmune diseases, including lupus, rheumatoid arthritis and thyroid disease.

5. Eye spasms, or annoying eye twitches： are caused by contractions of the eyelid muscles due to irritation of the muscle fibres. The underlying cause is almost always completely benign and can occasionally be precipitated by stress, fatigue or caffeine.

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