Your eye is bleeding: What is it and how to treat a subconjunctival hemorrhage

Alright so you woke up this morning and you have a broken blood vessel on your eye and it looks like your eye is bleeding.   You think… I need to find the nearest optometrist to me in Winnipeg.   So while you are waiting to get into your eye doctor here is a video summarizing what a subconjunctival hemmorhage is and what you need to do about it.   I will explain what the 7 common causes of this are and what you should do about your bleeding eye.

But you need to rule out all the other reasons. So when we are looking for signs of some type of eye disease there’s gonna to be something called a differential diagnosis. And what this means is that there’s a list of things that look like a certain condition but maybe something else that we need to rule out and make sure it’s not that.

There is a differential diagnosis for subconjunctival hemorrhages. There’s a few types of rare tumors that can happen on the eye that will look like a subconjunctival hemorrhage. And so when a patient comes in. And so when you go in to get this looked at your optometrist needs to rule that out.

So you know what this is and I’ve given you a list of possible reasons why you may have had this. So the question is should you see your optometrist. Well I would recommend you see your optometrist because it’s important for them to differentiate some of these rare and more serious conditions. And especially if this is due to some type of trauma because an injury that causes a hemorrhage could also cause a hemorrhage inside the eye on the retina or it could cause a retinal detachment or it can cause some other inflammation inside the eye that need to be treated.

So you’ve seen your optometrist they’ve made the diagnosis. They may have even told you exactly why this is happening in you.  What are you going to do about it. Well I’ve got good news for you because these usually resolve in about two weeks. But if you take really really good care of them you could probably get them to go away in about 14 days……

This is a bruise and the treatment for it is the same thing as when you get a bruise for your arm. What do you do? Your wait. There’s really nothing you can do to make it go away faster. You just have to give it some time and the body will clear that out.

OK so I know you still have a few questions about subcontract all the hemorrhages and I’m going to answer those right now. So if you’re taking a blood thinner and you think this might be related to it should you stop taking the blood thinner. The answer is absolutely do not stop taking your blood thinners unless you talk to your physician first. You have to remember this is a bruise and this is going to heal up on its own. If you’re on a blood thinner it’s probably going to take a little bit longer for it to heal but for a member the reason why you’re on the blood thinner you’re on the blood thinner to prevent heart attack and to prevent a stroke. Those are way more serious than a broken blood vessel.

So this is going to bother everyone else way more than it’s going to bother you.

You’re going to forget about it and you’re going to get people asking you multiple times a day Oh what’s wrong with your eye. What happened to your eye. And you actually forgot about and you say oh yeah that’s a surprise. Don’t worry about it too much.

You might be thinking that yours is getting bigger and it probably is the conjunctiva is a very loose tissue. And so blood can spread easily all throughout that tissue. And typically what gravity will do is he’ll pull the blood down and spread it in no pool to the bottom and make it look like the hemorrhage is getting bigger when in actual fact it’s spreading to a larger area.

So your eye might be a little bit tender. But remember what this is. It’s a bruise if you bruise your arm is it a little bit tender?  Absolutely.   So naturally your eyes get to probably feel a little bit tender and a little bit sore. That’s a normal feeling. It might even feel a little bit swollen or a little bit more full.

This is not an infection and you’re not at risk for developing an infection. And as a result you don’t need any antibiotics or eyedrops to help clear this up. So on the topic of eyedrops there are some over-the-counter anti redness eyedrops and those will do nothing for this. Those medications are designed to constrict or shrink the blood vessels to make your eyes look a little bit more white.  But these anti redness eyedrops they won’t help the redness on your eye go any faster. So definitely don’t use them.

So as this heals it’s going to change color right now mine is a dark red color and that’s going to go to kind of a brown to kind of orange bronze color and then to a yellow as it slowly fades away. So that changing color is a normal process.

This will not affect your vision. The conjunctiva is not really connected to the cornea. So this hemorrhage can’t spread under the cornea so it can’t interfere with your vision in any way.

So when you see your optometrist they’re going to do a few tests they’re going to check your vision they’re going to figure out with you what has caused this. They are probably measure the pressure inside your eye. They may measure your blood pressure. They will give you some advice on what’s causing this and what you need to know about it. But one important thing to know is that these shouldn’t happen on a regular basis if you start getting some constant travel hemorrhages regularly you should probably see your optometrist. And you should probably also see your physician to see if they have a reason why you are getting these repeated hemorrhages.

Have a great optometry day.

Michael Nelson, Optometrist Near You.

Waverley Eye Care Centre, Winnipeg Manitoba, Canada