Is it the sequela of COVID-19? The truth is... the pupils suddenly turn into triangular pupils | eyes | sequelae
A few days ago, someone posted online saying, "The day before yesterday, my right eye was a bit itchy and red. I thought it was red eye disease or wheat grain swelling. Yesterday morning, I bought levofloxacin hydrochloride for drip, and it's better. I went to the ophthalmology department to register this morning, and the doctor said how your pupils are triangular, which scared me..."
The netizen who posted the post attached a photo of his eyes and said: "The pupil has become triangular overnight. I'm so scared. What is the problem? Intraocular pressure, vision, and light are all normal, and things are not blurred. No surgery, no eye injury."
From the photo, it can be seen that the netizen has a dark triangular area in the center of his right eye, which is his pupil. The pupil of an average adult is a round hole with a diameter of approximately 2-4 millimeters. The triangular pupil of this netizen belongs to an abnormal condition where the pupil has undergone deformation, which generally means that the eye has undergone pathological changes.
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The pupils turn into triangles
Is it the sequela of COVID-19?
First of all, the conclusion is that it is not.
After the post was posted, some netizens asked if this was a new crown sequelae? In fact, this is not a new crown sequelae. The sudden deformation of the pupil, long before the emergence of the new crown virus, there are many cases.
In 2016, there were reports that someone had worked overtime for a week and found their eyes very red. Even after a few days of eye drops, there was no improvement. One day after waking up, I found that my pupils had turned into hearts.
Some people's pupils have turned into the shape of bamboo stalks:
Some people's pupils have become olive shaped:
In addition to the above, there are many strange deformations in the abnormal shape of the pupils, but no matter what shape it is, if the pupils suddenly turn like this, it is likely that the eyes have undergone pathological changes, so be careful. The netizen whose pupils suddenly turned into hearts was diagnosed with uveitis.
Recently, the netizen whose pupil became a triangle also went to the hospital and was diagnosed with iridocorneal endothelioma syndrome.
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What is Iris Corneal Endothelial Syndrome?
Iridocorneal endothelial syndrome is a collective term for three different eye diseases, including Chandler syndrome, primary or progressive iris atrophy, and Cogan-Reese iris nevus syndrome, all of which are characterized by different variants of corneal endothelial cell abnormalities.
Symptoms include corneal edema, progressive closure of the anterior chamber angle, often accompanied by glaucoma, and a series of iris changes.
At present, it is not clear what causes it. Although many scholars believe that it may be caused by inflammation or viral infection, so far it is impossible to replicate the disease by infecting animals with viruses, and in a variety of traditional virological testing methods, only PCR testing of some patients can obtain positive results. So the cause of this eye disease is not clear.
The patients with iridocorneal endothelioma are mainly young and middle-aged women, which usually occur after awakening in the morning, and the symptoms will be relieved or disappear in the afternoon, and most patients have monocular disease.
The initial symptoms are usually the discovery of abnormal iris, abnormal pupil shape and position, vision loss and eye pain. Early in the course of the disease will be complicated by corneal edema, blurred vision symptoms, about half of the patients will develop glaucoma later.
Since the cause is not yet clear, doctors have no ideal treatment for it. Generally, they do some relief for its complications, such as hypertonic saline eye drops or soft corneal contact lenses for corneal edema. For early glaucoma, it can be treated with drugs that inhibit aqueous humor generation. When intraocular pressure cannot be controlled by drugs, glaucoma filtration surgery is required to control intraocular pressure. Penetrating keratoplasty may be required in patients with corneal endothelial decompensation.
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These symptoms appear in the eyes
Seek medical attention promptly
The abnormality in the pupil shape of the netizen mentioned earlier was discovered by a doctor in the hospital. So in daily life, what symptoms do we need to seek medical attention promptly when we notice that our eyes have developed?
1. Abnormal visual acuity and decreased vision
If your eyes are still looking good the day before, but suddenly feel that something is deformed the next day, such as when the edge of the table is not straight or the clock on the wall is not round. Or when looking at things, you may feel a bit blurry, with a dark shadow blocking your vision, resulting in a loss of vision and a sudden decline in vision.
These symptoms are often the fundus retinal lesions or intracranial lesions of the signal, need to go to the eye immediately.
The treatment time window for some diseases is very narrow, such as eye stroke and cerebral stroke. If the best treatment opportunity is missed, it can cause permanent visual damage and even irreversible blindness.
2. Sudden eye pain and headache
If there is eye pain, redness, congestion, photophobia, tears, accompanied by headache, nausea, vomiting, and other symptoms, at the same time, the vision also becomes blurred, like a layer of fog, when looking at the light around the rainbow ring, this may be an acute glaucoma attack.
Once acute glaucoma occurs, the progression is extremely rapid, and complete blindness can occur within 24-48 hours at the earliest. Therefore, it is important to seek medical attention from an ophthalmologist as soon as possible.
3. Eye redness, swelling, pain, and increased secretion
If the eyes are red, swollen, painful, and secretions increase, there are many reasons. The common reason may be inflammation of the eyes. Inflammation of the eye is most likely to be inflammation of the ocular surface, such as keratitis, conjunctivitis, etc., this kind of eye disease generally has no obvious vision change.
The probability of inflammation occurring in the eye is relatively low. If there is, it may be caused by bacteria, fungi, or parasites, such as uveitis; Or microorganisms from other parts of the body may invade the interior of the eyes, such as bacterial endocarditis, purulent meningitis, and sepsis. Inflammation in the eyes is generally accompanied by symptoms of decreased vision and blurred vision.
Regardless of the situation, it is recommended to seek medical attention promptly and identify the cause of inflammation.
4. A lump appears on the eyelids, accompanied by redness, heat, and pain
If the eyelids are red, swollen, hot, painful and itchy, this may be a stye. When the stye has just appeared, hot compress on the affected area can generally make it disappear. However, if it is serious enough to have yellow pustules, you need to go to the hospital and let the doctor remove the abscess surgically.
If a lump is found inside the eyelids without accompanying symptoms of redness, swelling, heat, and pain, it may be chalazion. Chalazion usually has no obvious symptoms in the early stages, which means the lump will grow larger and larger. But if the eyelids show symptoms of redness, swelling, heat, and pain, it may be an infection caused by chalazion combined with wheat grain swelling, and its symptoms are particularly similar to wheat grain swelling. It is also recommended to seek medical attention promptly in this situation.
5. The pupils are one big and one small
Under normal circumstances, the left and right pupils of a person should be symmetrical. If the pupil is large and small, or the pupil on one side contracts slowly and the contraction amplitude is small, then this situation may be the early manifestation of stroke, brain tumor, optic nerve tumor and other diseases.
6. Pairing of objects
If there is no serious astigmatism at ordinary times, but the eyes suddenly have symptoms of double vision, which may be caused by muscle paralysis around the eyes, or intracranial lesions, such as stroke and intracranial tumor lesions. In this case, it is recommended to see an ophthalmologist or neurologist immediately.
7. Eye protrusion
Don't think that only the eyeballs of highly myopic people will protrude. Another common cause of eyeball protrusion is thyroid disease. The accompanying symptoms are eyelid edema, increased tears, limited eye movement, double vision, blurred vision and other symptoms, there is a risk of blindness. In this case, it is also recommended to seek medical treatment in time.
In addition, there are also some diseases that can cause eyeball protrusion, such as orbital tumors, intraorbital inflammation, intraocular tumors, pseudotumors, and late stage eye metastasis in leukemia. Therefore, it is recommended that people with symptoms of eyeball protrusion seek medical attention immediately.
8. Eyelid ptosis
Ptosis of the eyelids is not necessarily a lack of energy, nor is it necessarily caused by old age and sagging skin around the eyes. It may mean myasthenia gravis.
If blepharoptosis is accompanied by headache, eye pain, inflexible eye movement, and visual objects in pairs, it may be the acute onset period of diabetes, intracranial aneurysm, stroke, and brain stem disease. It is recommended to go to the hospital immediately.
9. Foreign object in the eye
If the eyes into the foreign body, must not rub the eyes, can blink more eyes, let the foreign body with the secretion of tears and outflow. Or flush the eyes with clean running water on the side head to wash away the foreign body. If the foreign body is deep and fails to rush out, please go to the eye department immediately.
10. The eye has been injured
If the eyes are scratched or contused by sharp or blunt objects, do not remove the foreign object on your own. If there are eye contents protruding, do not push them back into the eye to avoid infection. Do not rinse with water or apply medication.
You should immediately lie down on the spot and gently cover the injured eye with clean dressing to reduce the exposure of the wound. Be sure to cover your uninjured eyes as well, to prevent healthy eye activity from causing the injured eye to move and exacerbate the condition.
Then immediately go to the hospital, be careful not to bump on the road. If it is not handled in time or mishandled, it is easy to aggravate the infection and even lead to blindness.
11. Eyes burned by chemical substances
If there are unknown chemical substances into the eyes, be sure to the first time the head with a large amount of flowing water rinse eyes 15~30 minutes. If an alkaline chemical gets into the eye, it's more harmful and takes longer to rinse.
During the flushing process, keep rotating your eyes and blinking in order to fully flush out the chemicals in your eyes. Seek medical attention promptly after rinsing is completed.
12. Eyes burned by ultraviolet rays
If the eyes are not well protected during outdoor activities with strong ultraviolet rays, such as high mountains, at the beach, in the snow, on the ice, in the desert, or when using ultraviolet lamps and electric welding, the eyes are not well protected, The eyes are likely to be burned by ultraviolet rays and suffer from electro-optic ophthalmia.
The rapid onset occurs half an hour later, while the slow onset occurs 6-8 hours later. The initial symptoms include a foreign body sensation and stinging pain in the eyes. When it worsens, photophobia, tearing, eyelid tightness, spasms, conjunctival congestion, and edema may occur. If these situations occur, seek medical attention immediately. If you endure discomfort and delay seeking medical treatment, it may lead to further corneal infections or even keratitis.
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Conclusion
The actual need to go to the hospital for treatment goes far beyond the aforementioned situations. If you feel uncomfortable or have symptoms in your eyes, it is recommended to see an ophthalmologist and have a check-up. More importantly, in daily life, we should take good care of our eyes, look far away, rest more, stay up late, eat more eye protection food, ensure sufficient sleep, and keep our eyes bright forever.
Author: Xiaofang Cui Haoran
