Bungee jumping, ziplining, and riding your favorite killer roller coaster are the kinds of activities that create the sudden air pressure changes, extreme muscle tension, and quick, forceful movements that can blow an eye blood vessel.Ĭontact Lenses Improper lens insertion or removal can damage the surface of the eye, while material defects in the lenses themselves can similarly create harm. The American Academy of Family Physicians ranks basketball, water sports, baseball, and racquet sports as those posing the most potential harm to eyes.Ĭertain extreme leisure pursuits or sports also pose a risk to the eyes. Injury Sports lead the pack when it comes to eye-threatening injuries. Breath holding includes the Valsalva maneuver, a breathing technique that nudges a runaway heartbeat into a normal rhythm. Teeth Clenching and Breath Holding Both of these internal bodily actions can precipitate a subconjunctival hemorrhage. Straining to have a bowel movement, energetic coughing, sneezing, vomiting, laughing, crying - all generate the kind of internal pressure that could prompt a blood bleed in the eye. “People who engage in weightlifting, or those who have a condition that makes them more likely to be constipated, are the kinds of patients we see frequently,” says Witsberger. Straining Pushing your body to its limits, whether during an intense workout or while pulling, pushing, or lifting heavy objects can exert enough internal pressure for blood vessels to spout a little blood. Those ailments include bleeding or blood clotting disorders, high blood pressure, diabetes, elevated cholesterol, and other cardiovascular issues.īut, as Witsberger points out, “there are several different ways in which blood vessels can become broken.” Among the most common: Some systemic conditions tend to weaken blood vessels, making them more susceptible to the rigors of daily life. The ordinary stress or strains of daily life, fleeting moments of extreme exertion, an insignificant bump, or a barely perceived illness can quietly lead to a leak. What Causes a Burst Blood Vessel in the Eye?Īlmost half of spontaneous cases of subconjunctival hemorrhage are idiopathic, meaning there is no known - or no remembered - cause. Some babies, too, can enter the world with a vessel that probably burst from changes in pressure on the newborn’s body during childbirth. Women have been known to develop blood spots during childbirth. But younger people, especially those who engage in vigorous sports and activities, can easily burst an ocular blood vessel. People over age 50 and the elderly, especially older individuals with diabetes, hypertension (high blood pressure), hyperlipidemia (an abnormally high blood concentration of fats and lipids), or other underlying vascular conditions, are more prone to spontaneously develop these kinds of blood spots. Like a bruise, the mark normally fades over days or weeks, changing from red to purple to green and then yellow. “A pool of blood has collected right underneath the clear layer of the eye, and it shows up as completely red, like the surface of a tomato,” says Dr. The resulting spot appears flat, uneven, and vividly red. Occasionally these vessels rupture, sending a small amount of blood into the microscopic space between the conjunctiva and the sclera. Blood-thinning medication and some medical conditions can also cause a small blood vessel in the eye to spring a leak.įragile vessels nourish the conjunctiva, the transparent tissue lining the insides of the eyelids and covering the sclera - the eyeball’s white outer layer. In reality, it likely followed an unremarkable or unrecognized injury (rubbing your eyes long and hard, for example). Sometimes called a blood spot, a subconjunctival hemorrhage is actually a bruise to the eye that often seems to appear out of nowhere. “A subconjunctival hemorrhage can be confusing, scary, and pretty impressive looking if you’ve never seen it before, but it’s rarely anything to worry about,” says Emily Witsberger, MD, an adult and pediatric cornea specialist at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota. Predominantly caused by a minor injury or strain, a subconjunctival hemorrhage that isn’t recurrent or persistent is almost always harmless, even if it doesn’t look that way. Odds are you have a subconjunctival hemorrhage, or burst blood vessel. On an otherwise uneventful morning, you look in the mirror and … there’s blood in your eye!
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