How Alcohol Abuse Affects Your Eyes

Know your family medical history and avoid other risk factors. Substance abuse will only impair your eyes, so avoid smoking and illicit drugs. Alcohol not only causes physiological problems to your eyes, but your lowered inhibitions can incite you to dangerous activities that result in bodily harm, including eye injury. Medical professionals warn pregnant women against alcohol use. Anything the mother ingests passes through the umbilical cord to the unborn child, and drinking alcoholic beverages puts the child at risk of Fetal Alcohol Syndrome. Your blood pressure takes about two weeks to recalibrate after a pattern of overindulgence.

Alcohol consumption impacts every function in the body, including vision. Keep reading to learn more about how alcohol and eyesight are related and how to avoid complications from alcoholic eyes. One of the most vision-threatening effects of long-term alcohol consumption is optic neuropathy or optic atrophy. This condition can also be referred to as tobacco-alcohol amblyopia, caused by people who drink or smoke excessively.

Treatment options

Aside from the obvious symptom of having the whites of the eye look red, bloodshot eyes may also feel itchy, burning, painful and may cause the eyelids to swell. Normally this isn’t anything to worry about unless the redness does not go away. If someone is suspected to have nystagmus, they will likely undergo a CT scan or an MRI to get a scan of the brain.

There may be an association between increased alcohol consumption and geographic atrophy, a form of advanced age-related macular degeneration (AMD). However, simply reducing alcohol intake may not be enough to prevent geographic atrophy. One or both of your eyes may twitch during or after drinking alcohol. While there are many causes of eye twitching, it may be wise to cut back on drinking for a while if you develop an eye twitch that may be alcohol-related. Treatments can vary based on how alcohol has affected a person’s eyes and optic nerve.

When should I seek medical attention for hangover symptoms?

28% of patients in the placebo group also experienced an improvement in symptoms (Bartholomew, 1982). This demonstrates a modest treatment benefit, and a significant placebo benefit. Placebo-controlled studies of tetracycline in the treatment of ocular rosacea would help inform the treatment choices that clinicians make.

Both short-term and long-term use of alcohol affects the optic nerve and the relationship between the brain and the eye. Your body safely digests moderate amounts of ethanol in alcoholic drinks. A comparable level of methanol can prove lethal since your system converts the poison into formaldehyde. Once flowing through the veins, the chemical attacks the nervous system, including the optic nerve. A mere 10 milliliters of methanol can cause permanent blindness.

Permanent Effects of Alcohol on Eye Health

If you have ever experienced eye pain after drinking alcohol, you might already know some of the ways in which this substance can be dangerous toward your body. The combination of alcohol and eye pain is an indicator that something is not quite right. Alcohol can affect our vision https://ecosoberhouse.com/article/why-is-my-vision-blurry-after-drinking-alcohol/ in a number of ways, both in the short and long term. While regular heavy drinking can cause permanent damage in the long run, even occasional drinking affects the vision, albeit temporarily. One of the physical characteristics of someone who is a heavy drinker is bloodshot eyes.

• Rest the bottom of the bowls of the spoons against your eyelids.
• This can be incredibly annoying as your eyes can never focus on one point for very long.
• You may see doubles of everything or see spots flash across your eyes.
• Alcohol affects everyone differently, so you need to be cautious.

For example, many people have occult eye muscle imbalances, but the sober brain can preserve crisp, single vision. Once the person has consumed a little alcohol, the brain relaxes that control and vision problems become apparent. However, these changes will go away once the alcohol has cleared the system. Understanding your symptoms and signs and educating yourself about health conditions are also a part of living your healthiest life. The links above will provide you with more detailed information on these medical conditions to help you inform yourself about the causes and available treatments for these conditions.

Alcohol-related liver disease

These include worsening mental health, changes in behavior, turning to drugs or alcohol to “cope” with stress, and having withdrawal symptoms whenever you are not using or drinking. The effects of alcohol on vision can be short-term (appear immediately after drinking and disappear after sobering up) or long-term (after consuming alcohol for an extended period). At 0.05% to 0.07% BAC, individuals feel ‘tipsy.’ Then at 0.08% to 0.09%, individuals experience reductions in physical coordination and should not drive. At 0.10% to 0.14%, individuals experience a loss of coordination and judgment. Some Problems From Heavy Drinking
Double and distorted vision can occur from information that is slowed down between the eye and the brain. Decreasing the reaction time for the pupils to dilate, alcohol can impair the ability to see different color shades or adjust to lighting differences.

Short-term effects of heavy drinking can become long-term impairments. A person may suffer permanent double vision or blurring because of weaker eye muscles resulting from an alcohol-induced thiamine deficiency. Everything is related in the body, which is why paying attention to your holistic health is so important. Also referred to as tobacco-alcohol amblyopia, people who drink or smoke in excess can develop optic neuropathy, though it is rare. Studies have shown that vision loss can be a result of a nutritional deficiency, and some professionals believe that the condition develops because of the toxic effects of alcohol and tobacco.

Treatments for eye-related issues with alcohol

Drinking in moderation (defined as one drink per day for women and two drinks per day for men) isn’t going to cause any lasting negative problems with your eyes. Even if you have an episode where you feel dizzy and your vision feels different from usual, these symptoms will probably resolve themselves as the effects of the alcohol wear off. If your symptoms persist or worsen, it’s important to seek medical attention. At Nao Medical, our team of experienced healthcare providers can help diagnose and treat your blurry vision and other hangover-related symptoms.

• If you genuinely enjoy the flavor of stiff drinks, alcohol-free beer, wine, or spirits can be an alternative, as can mocktails.
• Another problem that excessive drinking leads to is migraine headaches, as the eye becomes sensitive to light; the result is pain.
• However, binge drinking and long-term alcohol abuse can damage the optic nerve, leading to vision loss.

It’s why people who have had a stressful day might tell themselves that they would like to have a drink to help them unwind. A summary of studies performed on the efficacy of intravenous erythropoietin and high-dose corticosteroid as a medical treatment for methanol toxicity. We will set up a plan and treatment options to sustain and improve your vision. A unit called blood alcohol concentration (BAC) outlines the amount of alcohol you take. BAC is expressed as a percentage in that 1% BAC means the individual has one alcohol molecule against 99 blood molecules.

Alcohol abuse can take a toll on your eye health.

The transmission of signals between our neurons, via neurotransmitters, gets slowed down, as a result of alcohol consumption. Since the impact on your eyes come from internal bodily reactions, there is little you can do to cure the redness, itchiness, and swelling except to wait. However, you can try the following home remedies to minimize the symptoms. If you have spent many years drinking heavily, you may have liver damage. The liver cleans your blood and removes old red blood cells, but alcohol impairs its function. The appendage cannot clear out the old red blood cells, and the build-up causes the yellowing of the whites of the eyes.

An eye dilation exam also helps diagnose the cause of blurry vision. Your doctor will place special eyedrops in your eyes to widen your pupil, which then allows your doctor to see the back of your eyes. But you shouldn’t ignore unexplained, persistent blurry vision, or vision problems accompanied by other symptoms. Sometimes, however, your nightly tears can dry on the surface of your eyes, causing blurry, hazy vision in the morning. Blinking a few times after waking up can remoisten your cornea and get rid of blurriness.