Vitreous Hemorrhage

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Greetings to all and sundry,

It is a beautiful weekend over here, today Ghana had its first official meetup under the auspices of @mcsamm who is our lead project manager for the borehole project as well as many of the upcoming Ghanaian projects that seek to impact communities massively.

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I really had a great day and I can't wait to share it all with you in my meetup report which is still been compiled. Watch out for the video on three speak, that said I owe you a responsibility of learning about the eye irrespective and I am here to do just that and so I do hope you stay with me and enjoy the read as usual.

Today we would be looking at a condition of the eye which is not so common, it is not so sighted menacing but could quite discomforting and could cause you to panic because of how it presents itself however there are managements or treatments available and so all is well. Let's look at vitreous hemorrhage or bleeding.


Introduction


The is quite malleable and yet fragile, it is easily affected by the little things that happen in our body and so its vessels get engorged easily when there is an obnoxious stimulus to it in an attempt to clear things off and bring things back to normal.

A lot of times the eyes are prone to inflammatory conditions and so for most of the conditions that affect the eye about 80% could be attributed to some form of inflammatory process happening somewhere. Now, because the vessels of the eye are quite small or perhaps cute it is susceptible to breakages.

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When these vessels break hemorrhages occur, sometimes in an attempt to repair weak vessels or form new ones due to hypoxia bleeding can occur, at other times the pressure coming to the eye from the heart or the intraocular pressure buildup is enough to rupture these microvessels.

Bleeding in the eye can mean so many things and would require the probing of a professional to identify the cause and put a stop to it. Conditions like diabetes, hypertension, glaucoma, etc could easily cause bleeding within the eye whereas this could also just happen spontaneously and idiopathically. So what happens during vitreous hemorrhage and what can be done in such a situation.


Vitreous Hemorrahge


The vitreous is a transparent liquid or jelly substance within the eye. I used liquid because at a point in time its natural nature of being jelly-like changes to liquid, this is a senile and not something that one ought to be necessarily worried about but is good to be in the know and we will talk about it not today.

The vitreous contributes a small amount of refractive power to light focusing on the retina. It also has the function of maintaining the tautness of the eyeball and so it's quite important as without it the eyeball may collapse. The vitreous doesn't have its own blood vessels though, I am sure at this juncture you are wondering how it could be bleeding if it doesn't have vessels.

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Well, the layer is surrounded by vessels from the choroid and the retina and so when any of these vessels break, they leak their content into the eyeball which generally means that blood is been leaked into the vitreous. When this happens it is termed a vitreous hemorrhage. The condition may be mild and almost unnoticeable by some patients whereas it can be severe and result in a sudden loss of vision in the eye.

The loss of vision is because the blood blocks or prevents light from passing through the now opaque or translucent vitreous to get to the retinal for phototransduction to occur and thus vision. And so it is not because your cells are dead or your eyes are no longer working that you can see in vitreous hemorrhage but the blood is blocking the path.

In such cases, the patient may report seeing only red in their vision or that they simply can't see anything, some may inform you that it happened overnight whereas others may tell you they noticed floaters (objects passing through their vision every now and then, which could be red blood cells as leakage or hemorrhage starts) before the sight went away.

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It is most acute because it may have happened within 48 to 72 hours or within a time interval of a week. Examining the eye under an ophthalmoscope or slit lamp may verify the diagnosis. The good news here is that sometimes the condition tends to resolve all on its own as the blood is reabsorbed back into the system.

If however within a time frame of about 3 months, it still hasn't cleared then surgery may have to be performed to clear it afterward the source of the bleed would have to be found and dealt with accordingly. You may be given some medication both topical and systemic but mostly good best rest should get the blood to settle down as the system tries to clear it from the vitreous space.


Conclusion


With that said, please do not assume that your sudden loss of vision is a vitreous hemorrhage without going in for diagnosis and management. The purpose of this write-up is not so you could diagnose yourself and do self-treatment but to enhance your knowledge of what your Optometrist may do for you and to better your understanding.

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by @nattybongo

That's why I always ask you to ask when you are in doubt. You can ask in the comment section or ask your Optometrist when you go in for a consultation. Do not be afraid because we are here to serve you. Please do well to avoid over-the-counter medication without proper care and remember to prioritize your ocular health as vision loss on a lot of occasions ain't reversible. Thank you once again for your time and for reading, best of luck to you all.


Further Reading

Kameda, Y., Hanai, K., Uchigata, Y., Babazono, T., & Kitano, S. (2020). Vitreous hemorrhage in diabetes patients with proliferative diabetic retinopathy undergoing hemodialysis. Journal of diabetes investigation, 11(3), 688–692. https://doi.org/10.1111/jdi.13161.

Spraul, C. W., & Grossniklaus, H. E. (1997). Vitreous Hemorrhage. Survey of ophthalmology, 42(1), 3–39. https://doi.org/10.1016/s0039-6257(97)84041-6.

Shaikh, N., Srishti, R., Khanum, A., Thirumalesh, M. B., Dave, V., Arora, A., Bansal, R., Surve, A., Azad, S., & Kumar, V. (2023). Vitreous hemorrhage - Causes, diagnosis, and management. Indian journal of ophthalmology, 71(1), 28–38. https://doi.org/10.4103/ijo.IJO_928_22.

Conart, J. B., & Berrod, J. P. (2016). Hémorragies du vitré non traumatiques [Non-traumatic vitreous hemorrhage]. Journal francais d'ophtalmologie, 39(2), 219–225. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jfo.2015.11.001



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9 comments
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Hello buddy, thanks for this, the eye is such a delicate part of the body that we must pay proper attention too, appreciate the steady information you share about it.

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Thank you for reading, I really appreciate your time, it is a pleasure

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This is impressive. With your expertise, we can help communities struggling with health-related issues with the support of the hive ecosystem. I am sure you are ready to help impact lives with hive. Thanks for your hard work.

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I am always available to help and I look forward to been able to impact communities through Hive with my skill and talent, it is always a pleasure working with you Sir

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Thanks for this educative piece. On a scale of 1 to 10, how often does vitreous hemorrhage corrects itself?

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I would say about 8, based on my personal experience and the patients I’ve worked with, it is only when the hemorrhage is severe that you may need vitrectomy, but most of the cases I see especially in diabetic retinopathy there ain’t much blood and giving eye supplements and waiting it out to clear works

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I must admit that the thought of suddenly losing my vision, even temporarily, must be a very uncomfortable and frustrating experience, as well as terrifying.

Luckily, as with most hemorrhages, the body has its mechanisms to reabsorb the red blood cells, however, I would not want to put those reabsorption mechanisms to the test...👀

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Haha, our bodies and how our anatomy and physiology works always amazes although i still understand things better than most, we are awesome creatures indeed

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Thanks for your contribution to the STEMsocial community. Feel free to join us on discord to get to know the rest of us!

Please consider delegating to the @stemsocial account (85% of the curation rewards are returned).

Thanks for including @stemsocial as a beneficiary, which gives you stronger support. 
 

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