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Don’t let high blood pressure affect your vision

An eye examination can prove beneficial to more than just your eye health. Conditions such as diabetes, arthritis, and excessive levels of cholesterol can all be spotted during an optician’s routine checks. Whilst this is hugely beneficial for catching irregularities that have gone by unnoticed, it also highlights the risk that other aspects of your general health can pose on your eyesight. One of the most common of these dangers comes with high blood pressure. Here, we outline how this affects your eye health and how it can be treated.

How blood pressure affects the eyes

eye-examination_250If you have high blood pressure, it is crucial that you have regular eye examinations as the disease can often show no symptoms until in its latter stages. These symptoms may include double vision and headaches. If the blood pressure shows at the back of the eye, your optometrist, with the help of our specialist retinal imaging equipment, will be able to observe signs such as spots on the retina, a swelling of the central retina (known as the macula) and small areas of bleeding in the back of the eye. These signs are commonly known as Hypertensive Retinopathy. High blood pressure also increases the risk of stroke and cardiac arrest.

Preventing and reversing the effects of Hypertensive Retinopathy

The lowering and the control of your blood pressure is the mainstay treatment for Hypersensitive Retinopathy, which will allow the retina to heal itself over a period of a few months. Your doctor may prescribe you medication to help with this, but there are plenty of things you can do to lower it yourself. Make an effort to maintain a healthy diet with a regular exercise routine to boost your general fitness. Reducing your stress levels also plays an important part, as chronic stress is an important contributor to high blood pressure.

Always remember that high blood pressure affects all aspects of your health, including your eyes. Many expert optometrists such as those at Leightons for example can provide appropriate treatment and advice to anyone with concerns regarding eyecare, so it was worth contacting for further advice.

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Early Osteoarthritis Diagnosis Blood Test

Warwick University are engaged in research that could see a blood test developed that can provide an early diagnosis of osteoarthritis several years before the onset of physical and irreversible symptoms.

blood test

 

The blood test will work by allowing the detection of damaged proteins in samples from patients but at markedly lower levels than they would usually be found. This will provide identifiable markers much earlier in the diagnostic process.

 

According to Dr Naila Rabbani of Warwick Medical School:

“Damage to proteins in the arthritic joint have been known for many years but this is the first time it has been exploited for early-stage diagnosis.

For the first time we measured small fragments from damaged proteins that leak from the joint into blood. The combination of changes in oxidised, nitrated and sugar-modified amino acids in blood enabled early stage detection and classification of arthritis – osteoarthritis, rheumatoid arthritis or other self-resolving inflammatory joint disease.

This is a big step forward for early-stage detection of arthritis that will help start treatment early and prevent painful and debilitating disease.”

Read more about this research on the Warwick University’s website.

For the full research article you can visit Arthritis Research and Therapy.

If you are living with arthritis and are looking for helpful content take a look at the following talkhealth resources:

Arthritis & Joint Pain Forum

Arthritis Hub

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