Hormones are your body’s master communicators. They travel throughout your body telling all your systems what to do and when to do it. They regulate mood, hunger, temperature, sleep, and, of course, growth — including eyeball growth.
Children’s eyeballs grow just as all their other body parts do, and sometimes the new size can cause some temporary vision disturbances, such as nearsightedness (myopia) or blurry vision. This often corrects itself by the time they’re teens.
Adults’ hormones can also affect vision. From season-of-life fluctuations to medication-related changes, hormone levels ebb and flow throughout adulthood, and your eyes react accordingly.
If you have blurry vision, it may be due to a hormone imbalance. Dr. Charles Hunt II, our highly experienced thoracic and cardiovascular surgeon, understands the intricate relationship between hormones and your eyes. Here at Alabama Vein & Restoration Medspa, he helps women and men throughout the state get their hormones and their lives back in balance. Here’s what you need to know about hormones and your vision.
Women, hormones, and eyes
Women’s hormones fluctuate frequently. Menstrual cycles, puberty, pregnancies, aging, birth control pills, perimenopause, and menopause all significantly change your levels, and your eyesight fluctuates right along with those shifts. Here are a few of the changes the affect your eyes:
Dryness
When your estrogen level declines, so does the lubrication produced by the oil glands in your eyes. This causes dryness and sometimes blurry vision.
Extremely high levels of estrogen can have the same effect. When you’re pregnant, for instance, you may experience temporarily blurry vision.
Eye shape
Hormone shifts can also lead to changes in your cornea’s shape, which may make your contact lenses suddenly feel like they don’t fit anymore.
Hormonal changes may make your cornea more elastic, which alters the way light travels through your eyes and may cause blurry vision.
Hormones affect men’s eyes, too
Although men’s hormones don’t fluctuate quite as frequently as women’s, when they do dip, it can impact their vision as well.
Androgens, which include testosterone, are the hormones that give men their male characteristics. But as men age, they tend to slow down their production of these hormones, which has a cascading effect on their bodies, including lower sex drive, decreased muscle mass, and yes, vision changes.
Studies show that lower androgen levels are linked to dry eye disease and ocular surface disease, both of which cause blurry vision.
What to do when hormones are blurring your vision
Your eye health is extremely important, and blurry vision can be a symptom of several different ocular conditions. Make sure you visit your ophthalmologist regularly to keep your eyes sharp and healthy.
But when hormones are to blame for your blurry vision, Dr. Hunt can help. Through bioidentical hormone replacement therapy (BHRT), he restores the optimal levels of estrogen, testosterone, and progesterone, thyroid, and melatonin in your system.
Bioidentical hormones are plant-based and are a perfect chemical match to the hormones your body produces. Once Dr. Hunt determines your deficiencies, he can develop a custom treatment plan specifically for your unique needs.
With BHRT, you may also notice that some of your other health issues are resolved as well, such as insomnia, weight gain, low sex drive, fatigue, and depression.
If your vision isn’t what it used to be, check in with your ophthalmologist and then come see us in case your hormones are the culprit. Call us today at any of our five locations throughout Alabama, or request an appointment using our online booking tool.