so I'm sure that you've heard that the
eyes are the windows to the soul right
but reality they're more like Windows to
your health and I bet you'll be
surprised by how the health of different
bodily organs all show up through your
eyes so here's my top nine of what your
eyes are telling me about your health so
let's take a look
[Music]
hey eyes inside there my friends Dr Alan
here from the Dr Eye Health show helping
me learn everything about the eyes and
seeing your very best now when I first
look at somebody's eyes the first thing
I'm usually seeing is just the outside
appearance of their eyes so number one
is just somebody having red eyes if
somebody's eyes are red it's not just
meaning that they have an infection like
with pink eye or that perhaps they've
been smoking something in fact red eyes
can be caused by many different things
certainly allergies dry eye conditions
maybe they got poked in the eye or
scratched in the eye but somebody having
red eyes is really just an indication
that something is unhappy with their
eyeball but for some people having red
eyes could be a sign of something like a
uvitis or a scleritis these are deeper
inflammatory issues that are occurring
not just within the eye but are often
linked and associated with other things
going on in the body the case of uveitis
could be linked to inflammation due to
Ankylosing Spondylitis and inflammatory
condition that affects your spine 9.
also inflammatory bowel disease
including Crohn's disease and ulcerative
colitis then you also have seratic
arthritis where people who have
psoriasis on their skin somehow that
inflammation affects the eyes and then
also sarcoidosis and many other
inflammatory diseases again it just
baffles me and I think it's super
interesting how just different parts of
the body just if there's an inflammation
in your gut it can cause inflammation in
your eye I think it just goes to show
you how crazy complex and beautiful the
human body really is the second thing
the eyes can tell you is if somebody has
jaundice this is probably the most
famous sort of eye condition that I
think people will just recognize in
other YouTube videos is if your eyes are
turning yellow or your skin is yellow
this can be a sign of jaundice jaundice
is a condition where too much bilirubin
is building up within your body it is
often a sign that something is not going
right with your liver so unfortunately
if you see somebody with yellow eyes
there could be something going on with
their liver anything from infections to
medications could be gallstones or even
cancer thankfully however jaundice is
pretty rare player so I personally
haven't even had to run across it yet
number three on this list is that of a
white or yellowish ring that grows on
the outside of the colored part of your
eye if you ever run up to a mirror look
into a friend's eyes you might be able
to see this little white or yellow ring
starting to form on the outside there
and that is in fact a deposit of lipid
or fat that is depositing in the cornea
stroma so in fact it's not actually
depositing in the color part of the eye
it's in the cornea the front window to
the eye and we call this development
corneal arcus and if we happen to notice
it in somebody who's younger like under
the age of 40 it could be an indication
of dyslipidemia or elevated cholesterol
levels however if you ever go up to
somebody who's a bit older like if you
walk up to your grandparents if you're
comfortable getting that close you might
be able to notice that they do have this
white ring growing there this is pretty
common in anybody that's over the age of
60 and we call that arcus sinilus and
this is believed to occur more often as
you get older because your blood vessels
are more permeable to lipid deposits as
you get older but still if I see this in
a young individual I'm worried that they
have elevated cholesterol levels or
something's wrong with their lipids and
they could be at increased risk of heart
attack stroke or some other
cardiovascular event number four on my
list here is that of having redness
under your eyelids if you ask a friend
just to look for you it's pretty hard to
do it in the mirror but if you look down
toward the floor and lift up your upper
eyelid if the white part of your eye
there is more red like a big red patch
that could be an indication of what is
called SLK or Superior limbic
keratoconjunctivitis and this condition
this SLK is highly associated with
thyroid disease and that's because in
the cases of thyroid eye disease the eye
muscles around the eye become swollen
and that pushes the eyes outward kind of
creating this bulging eye look and then
the eyelid the top eyelid especially has
a little bit more friction on the top of
the eye and then that rubs and causes
more inflammation now if someone happens
to be a contact lens where perhaps that
redness could be from the contact not
sitting right but still whenever we see
that in the eye clinic we usually have
to go test for any set that somebody may
have problems with their thyroid number
five is the presence of a pinguecula if
you ever look in the mirror or take a
picture and you notice a little tiny
raised bump or growth at three or nine
o'clock on both of your eyes however
they do tend to show up more often
toward the nose those little raised
bumps which could look white yellow pink
or even red if it's inflamed we call
that a pinguecula and he's usually
assigned to me that this person has sun
damage basically uh through the course
of your life if you're exposed to a lot
of UV light radiation especially from
the Sun or if you're around a lot of
lakes or bodies of water that sunlight
bounces off the water hits you in the
face twice thankfully we're in wide room
hats and UV light protecting sunglasses
can slow down the progression of this
disease and prevent it from occurring in
the first place unfortunately if you
already have a pinguakula sunglasses and
hats I'm gonna reverse what you already
have but it'll at least slow down down
and hopefully prevent it from becoming
inflamed or worse now number six is that
of pupil size and there can be a lot to
be said about pupil size here but this
is genuinely something that I do look
for when I meet new people and certainly
anytime a patient comes into the clinic
just in general your pupils are
regulated by your autonomic nervous
system as well as influenced by
medications but if you ever see somebody
with blown wide open pupils that's
usually a sign that they are excited or
really scared such as in the situation
where like you're running away from a
bear or maybe a burglar broke into your
apartment or your home your pupils are
going to dilate really big to let more
information into your eye so that you
can detect motion better and be able to
react faster in those situations because
that's going to increase your chances of
survival in that scary situation and
then just the opposite if you're really
relaxed in a digestive mood you're just
kind of chilling out your pupils are
likely going to get much much smaller so
when somebody comes into my clinic and
they happen to be on some sort of
medication or maybe using illicit drugs
then just by looking at their pupils I
can get an idea what they might be
taking for example if they had used
enlisted drug Like Cocaine that is an
extreme stimulant your body is going to
be really excited your pupils are
humongous and large or on the flip side
if somebody's using something like
morphine a very powerful pain reliever
then their pupils are going to be very
very beady tiny or the fancy word views
in the clinic as meiotic like little
teeny pinpoint pupils but just some
interesting fun facts is that normally
young kids do have larger pupils and
then your pupils get smaller and smaller
as you get older so if you go up to your
grandparents you may notice that their
pupils are really tiny and in fact we
have to use extra amounts of dilation
medication in the clinic to get their
their eyes open and the other cool fact
is that your pupils will respond and
dilate when you see something that you
really like like if you're meeting
somebody that you're attracted to or
perhaps you have a really good hand in a
game of poker in fact that's why a lot
of poker players will wear sunglasses
over their eyes so that you can't see
where they're looking as well as you
can't see their pupils dilate when they
have a good hand now the times when I am
mostly concerned about some of these
pupils is when one pupil is a different
size on one versus the other when
somebody has different sized pupils we
call that having an eye sicoria and the
sicoria has many causes but it can be a
sign of some very serious medical
emergency is that's exactly why you'll
see doctors on both TV shows and in real
life flash a flashlight between each eye
going back and forth something that we
call the swinging flashlight test and
they're specifically looking to see how
your pupils react to light in different
situations if one pupil isn't really
reacting to light the correct way it
could be a sign that somebody has an
aneurysm or a stroke of some kind but
before you go into the mirror look and
you know freak out because you notice
that one people slightly larger keep in
mind about 20 percent of the general
population does have physiological
anasicoria where just one pupil is
slightly like one millimeter larger in
diameter and all lighting situations
than the other people medicine doesn't
fully understand why some people have
this and even why it can sometimes
switch sides but it's believed to be
caused by some sort of transient
asymmetry in the neurological
connections and feedback between your
brain and the eye but still if you see
somebody with one pupil really large and
the other one's really small that might
be a Telltale sign something is going on
unless you're David Bowie and you notice
that he has two different sized pupils
I've read once that that was caused by
trauma when he got into a fight or
something on the playground when he was
a kid but definitely let me know in the
comment section if you or if you know
somebody who has different size pupils
because of trauma or some medical
condition it's it's kind of interesting
number seven instead of having recurrent
eyelid styes now having a stye on your
eyelid if you've never had one before
there's two different forms one is an
infection where it's really painful kind
of red almost looks like a pimple
developing on the outside of the eye uh
the other one is called the chalazium
and a chalazion is more like a hard
nodule on your eyelid and those are more
of a build up or blocked up of the oil
fluid inside the eyelid and it's pretty
normal to get either one of these a few
times in your life some people do tend
to get them more often but if somebody
is developing recurrent forms of these
chalazions over and over and over in the
exact same spot on their eyelid then
your doctor like myself I have to be
concerned that perhaps that's not a
chalisia gun instead that could be a
sign of a sebaceous carcinoma now I know
there are people who do get recurrent
styes all the time if you're hearing
this and you're kind of freaking out uh
definitely don't take my word for it go
see the doctor ask them get their
opinion on if there's anything you can
do to reduce the size and of course for
them just to consider if perhaps it is
something like sebaceous cell carcinoma
number eight on my list is that of pain
with eye movements now if you just look
to the far left look to your far to
right and hold it there you'll probably
notice a little bit of tension or pain
kind of building up behind your eye
that's not what I'm talking about here
when I'm talking about somebody who can
just barely shift their eyes around and
they're like in throbbing pain around
their eye and usually this pain with eye
movement doesn't come alone usually
someone also has a reduced Vision maybe
double vision even reduced color vision
in that one eye like if they compare
back and forth they'll notice color
vision is a little desaturated in one
eye but in the Eye Care world if
somebody does have pain with eye
movement initially we always are
concerned about something called Retro
Ball bar optic neuritis or really just
optic neuritis in a general sense optic
neuritis is inflammation of the optic
nerve behind the eye and if you can
imagine this occurs because the optic
nerve has a little bit of give to it on
the back of the eye so when your eyes
shift left and right the optic nerve
actually kind of shifts and jumps around
a little bit inside the optical cavity
and if that optic nerve is swollen then
you're going to feel that and you feel
that as pain and the cases where people
have this we do order a brain MRI
because usually the eyeball looks normal
in about two-thirds of cases but with an
MRI we usually are looking specifically
for any sort of white matter lesions
that are indicative of something like Ms
or multiple sclerosis an optic neuritis
happens to be like the presenting
feature and up to like 20 percent of Ms
cases and almost 50 percent of everybody
who it gets Ms will at some point have
optic neuritis so yeah recognizing pain
with eye movement is pretty important
number nine is that of somebody having a
white cornea and in fact this is
something that kind of frustrates me on
a deeper level because of YouTube I see
a lot of just kind of sketchy videos
that get posted usually not by somebody
in the healthcare field but they always
have a thumbnail that has like an
eyeball that has like a completely white
cornea or washed out cornea and then
they have another picture of like a
normal eye and it's some sort of
terrible thing that's like reverse your
glaucoma and cataracts 100 proven that
white cornea is neither a cataract nor
glaucoma yes it's true if somebody does
have a mature cataract it can form kind
of a white marble but that's deeper
inside the eye that'll be where the
black pupil is of the eye it won't be
the entire cornea but if you do see
somebody that does have a white cornea
on the front surface of the eye that's
usually due to scarring of some form
either because they had a massive ulcer
from an infection like wearing their
contact lenses or from like a bad
surgery or something or perhaps they had
trauma in their a kid something not nice
happened to that eye now of course in
that situation if somebody did have
trauma to the eye that can cause
scarring on the surface and then a
cataract due to trauma can occur but the
white entire cornea being white that's
not caused by cataracts or glaucoma or
other things so yeah usually if I see
thumbnails like that I kind of laugh a
little bit and I just uh can usually
kind of guess that they don't know what
they're talking about all right so which
one of the eye conditions mentioned this
video was your favorite let me know in
the comment section below I try to get
back to as many people as I can I know
the channel has grown quite a bit but I
do take your questions and all your
comments very seriously now of course
there are many different systemic
diseases that show up in the eye that we
did not list in this video I tried to
make it toward just like things on the
front surface like things you can just
look at somebody and kind of tell what's
going on but a lot of diseases we can
see just by looking inside the eye
things like diabetes high blood pressure
maybe anemia stroke and autoimmune
diseases a lot of other things are going
on inside the eye and sadly a lot of
times the eyesight or vision is not
affected by a lot of those conditions
until it's too late so if you have not
had an eye exam in the last 12 months I
strongly encourage you to reach out to a
local eye care professional and schedule
an exam again even if you think your
vision is fantastic it's good just to
have things checked out to make sure
things are staying healthy if you did
find Value in this video please hit that
like button for me and subscribe to the
channel if you are new and want to
continue learning about cool stuff about
the eye otherwise I appreciate you for
sticking around to the end keep an eye
on it and we'll see you in the next one