monkey pox it actually does kind of bug me a little bit to make another video about a virus
but i have been getting the question does monkey pox affect the eyes
can you actually go blind for monkey pox let's focus in
quick review of monkey pox rare disease caused by the monkey pox virus a type of ortho pox virus
similar to the small pox virus that was eradicated in 1980. it's called monkey pox because it was
first isolated from a monkey in africa but usually the typical type of reservoir for this type of
virus is actually from rodents in africa and this virus can be passed on from animals to humans
humans to humans infected materials to humans if you get a bite or a scratch from an animal you
can get monkey pox from that usually when it's spread from human to human it's usually from
large respiratory droplets and you actually have to be pretty close to that person for a little
while to actually get monkey pox or actually have it spread from person to person it's also
spread with direct contact with the infectious sores scabs bodily fluids so stuff like that
mucous membranes that can all spread monkey pox usually the symptoms involve fever headaches
lack of energy fatigue back pain and something that's actually unique with monkey pox is your
lymph nodes will swell up quite a bit with monkey pox and usually about one to three days after the
fever people can develop a rash with lesions now these lesions will usually start off as flat maybe
slightly elevated and then they'll start to fill up with fluid maybe a yellowish fluid
become almost looking like a blister or a pox monkey pox and they'll usually be on
the extremities like the hands feet on the face mouth and can also be found on the eye now in
most cases the symptoms of monkey pox will resolve on its own without treatment within a few weeks
now there are people that are immunocompromised the younger generation newborns children those
people are typically more vulnerable to have medical complications with monkey pox or in rare
cases could even lead to death now for the portion of the video that you've been waiting for can
monkey pox actually affect the eye can actually make you go blind now i actually had to dive into
the research a little bit on this one to actually find numbers percentages of people that actually
have their eyes affected from monkey pox and one of the more common studies i found about 25
of the people that had monkey pox actually had ocular manifestations they had monkey pox actually
affecting their eyes now the symptom or the ocular manifestation was a conjunctivitis which is a
scientific term for pink eye now conjunctivitis is the inflammation of the conjuctiva now we
have the white part of the eye the sclera and then there's a thin layer of see-through tissue
right over the sclera called the conjuctiva and when you get a conjunctivitis that's the layer of
tissue that gets inflamed it can get red it can crinkle up a little bit it can make your eyes
water it can be irritating itchy and sometimes painful now usually a conjunctivitis will remain
on the conjunctiva but one thing you want to watch out for is for any corneal involvement on the eye
that's where you can have potential problems with scarring it can affect your vision so that's the
main thing you want to watch out for is to make sure it doesn't involve the cornea now pretty much
everybody in the study that had conjunctivitis recovered nicely their eyes went back to normal
they didn't have any long-term lasting effects on their eyes they didn't have blindness their
vision returned to normal now i do want to say the 25 number was the highest number that i saw a lot
of other studies that i saw showed a lot less percentages of people that got a conjunctivitis
i think the people that usually get an eye problem a conjunctivitis were usually the people that had
the more severe cases of monkey pox or maybe the more severe strain of monkey box now i did find
some other studies where in rare cases of people that had the more severe case of monkey pox did
actually have a lesion on their cornea the front window dome to the eye and that lesion actually
left scarring on the cornea which actually left them severely reduced in their vision
or blind again this is pretty rare i really had to search for people that had these type of eye
conditions that left them actually going blind from monkey pox now if someone does happen to get
a conjunctivitis from monkey pox there are a few things to do and watch out for you can definitely
use artificial tears to coat the eye to soothe the eye you want to watch the cornea for any type of
lesions that might be showing up and if so there's an option that you can actually use an antiviral
eye drop called trifluoridine this is used in other viral eye problems that you can get as well
now if you have a lesion sometimes you'll be given an antibiotic ointment or eye drop just to prevent
an infection on that lesion to prevent hopefully scarring that might show up from that lesion
so can you go blind from monkey pox yeah super rare more likely you might get a
conjunctivitis or a pink eye 25 of the people might get that again you might not
but your eyes should return back to normal kind of like getting monkey pucks it should go away within
that two to three weeks and if you're getting sick and tired of hearing about monkey pox you can
check out my video right there it's more about the eyes i'm Dr. Neal Guymon, Dr. EyeGuy, stay focused