Thyroid, eye pressure and eye disease

[Astridnova]

When I was at the hospital optometrist with my elderly mother, who has hypothyroidism and glaucoma and macular degeneration of the eyes, I asked the optometrist if she knew of a connection between undiagnosed or untreated thyroid disease and problems with eye pressure. She said, "Of course! They teach us about that at university." It seems that in her course everyone learned that there was a lot of untreated and undiagnosed hypothyroidism and that this could affect the eyes, because it could affect the fluid pressures in the eyes and the ears. It also seems that these optometrists don't try to communicate about this with GPs, who they know are often not aware of it. Two different silos. They are just aware there is a relationship between untreated or undiagnosed hypothyroidism (as well as the obvious eye problems of hyperthyroidism) and eye disease with pressure problems. However there are broader medical articles on the subject, e.g.

Thyroid Disease - body - Glaucoma Australia

glaucoma.org.au › articles › thyroid-disease-article

Thyroid over or under activity can be associated with problems in and around the eyes. ... Eye pressures can fluctuate widely, with maximal pressures reaching even into the 40 – 50 mm Hg range. Such pressures can lead to damage to the optic nerve fibres in precisely the same way as in any other glaucoma.

Hypothyroidism as a risk factor for open angle glaucoma - NCBI

ncbi.nlm.nih.gov › pmc › articles › PMC5656411

by S Wang - ‎2017 - ‎Cited by 4 - ‎Related articles

Oct 25, 2017 - Hypothyroidism results in a reduction of cellular metabolism and yields a wide range of overt and subclinical symptoms and signs[10]. It has been hypothesized that the deposition of mucopolysaccharides in the trabecular meshwork in patients with hypothyroidism might result in rising intraocular pressure (IOP).

Reversible increase of intraocular pressure in subclinical ...

ncbi.nlm.nih.gov › pubmed

by M Centanni - ‎1997 - ‎Cited by 50 - ‎Related articles

Eur J Endocrinol. 1997 Jun;136(6):595-8. Reversible increase of intraocular pressure in subclinical hypothyroid patients. Centanni M(1), Cesareo R, Verallo O, ...

[Calends]

Yes, I have heard about this and read about it. My optometrist was really interested when I told him and said that yes, he saw some changes and that we would change our yearly appointment to twice a year. This is good to. know and a very good post. Thanks.

[Marz]

Professor Chris Knobbe - an Opthalmologist from the US has written a book about Macular Degeneration and says it is nothing to do with age - but poor diet. I have been in e-mail contact with him assuring him how good my diet has always been . After further discussion he agreed it could well be due to poor absorption as a result of the gut TB, Crohns and Hashimotos. He then admitted he had not covered this aspect in his book. He was aware Hashi's was an auto-immune issue. So these top guys do not know everything even when they write books on the topic ! I was diagnosed with early Macular Degeneration almost 3 years ago which fortunately has not worsened , fingers crossed ! As many of us are aware - thyroid issues can and do cause mal-absorption ...

[Astridnova in reply to Marz]

Thanks so much for contributing some more info on this rather poorly resourced topic. The more we know, the better. What was the name of the book you refer to?

[Marz in reply to Astridnova]

It is an e-book. The postage from the US for the book was huge ! If you pop his name into your chosen internet Search his website will appear. I have yet to read the book. Been overwhelmed with moving from Greece to UK ..

EDIT: cureamd.org