a common call that we get in the clinic is someone saying hey one of my eyes went blurry
all of a sudden maybe they woke up and realized hey I can't see out of my right eye and like I
said this can be fairly common and so I wanted to go over five reasons why this might happen
let's focus in we have arteries and veins that Supply blood and nutrients to the inside of the
eye the retina and the tissue around the retina and if one of those has a blockage you can get
a blockage in the arteries or the veins it can cause those veins or those arteries to
burst and leak and peruse and fluid will go all around and blood will go all around and doctors
will commonly call this an eye stroke it's an umbrella term for any type of blockage in one
of the blood vessels in the eye now for example take a retinal vein occlusion there's a blockage
in the vein of the eye sometimes you can get this occlusion and not really have any symptoms in the
eye people won really know that they've had had an eye stroke now if there's enough of fluid or blood
or leakage that happens in there that fluid can accumulate into the center of the eye the macula
where the center of your vision is where your fine detail Vision happens if you get fluid in
there then definitely will mess up your vision so it is possible the vision might feel like it went
blurry all of a sudden but you've had something kind of brewing and leaking in there for a while
now and it's also possible when you have that eye stroke the vision could go blurry all of a sudden
the bottom line here is that it does warrant an emergency visit to your eye doctor and if you're
having other stroke symptoms trouble talking numb droopy face then you want to go into the ER even
if it's in the middle of the night don't waste your time and there's a lot more to cover a lot
more details to talk about regarding eye strokes and I'll do that in a later video but if you are
having these symptoms go right into your doctor number two is retinol detachment now typically
with retinal detachment you'll have other symptoms usually flashes of light lightning streaks in the
side periphery of your vision you might notice that you got new floaters floaters floating
Globs floating in Your Vision or you might notice a curtain a dark Veil or hazy area that's starting
to come from the peripheral of your vision sneaking into the center of your vision now this
is what's scary if you have a retinal detachment and it's progressing there's a chance that it can
get to the macula that is the center of your vision if it gets to the macula and detaches
the macula that can really decrease your vision in fact in the clinic we call that a Mac off retinal
detachment or macula off retinal detachment which kicks you up into the next level of care and more
emergent if you have a Mac off retinal detachment you want to get right in there get treatment as
fast as possible to try and save your vision so if you notice that your vision went blurry especially
the center part of your vision and it's related to a retinal detachment you do not want to waste
any time middle of the night late at night weekend call your eye doctor get right in see what's going
on number three is a cataract now this one might surprise you because usually cataracts are very
slow progressing it slowly changes your vision it's not really thought of as a condition that
can all of a sudden change your vision in one eye but there is one type of cataract that can have
that effect there's a cataract called a posterior subcapsular cataract it's a mouthful and this
cataract forms on the back of the crystallin lens inside your eye subcapsular under that capsular
bag in your eye and it acts like a blanket that's starting to cover the back of that lens now
normally if the blanket or the Cataract is on the side of the lens it doesn't really mess with your
central vision as much but once that blanket that cataract crosses over your central visual axis
the center Vision that that's when you'll notice that it really degrades and decreases your vision
and I've actually had many patients that wake up notice wow my eye and my left eye went blurry all
of a sudden they'll come right in and I'll say hey you have a cataract and it's really hard to
believe because usually cataracts are the slow progressing problem and this type of cataract
just grew really fast and this type of cataract is known for that it can be fast progressing and
sometimes you won't notice it until it crosses that Central axis so it'll make it it feel like
you didn't have anything wrong until it crossed that Central axis and then all of a sudden blurry
vision in one eye now luckily you can get this one resolved with cataract surgery where your vision
can go back to normal number four is a migraine this is also another one that you wouldn't really
think of can cause a sudden blur to your vision in one eye but a lot of people that have migraine
specifically epic or ocular or eye migraines can get what's called a visual Aura in their vision
and it can actually block block and blur up their vision for a little bit now the symptoms of this
one can vary from person to person but typically when you get this visual Aura it can be a blurry
smudge it can look like a zigzag pattern of Lights maybe colors black and white it can blink or stay
there it can grow and move outside your peripheral vision so there are many different options to the
symptoms there but they typically last 5 to 30 minutes maybe longer but then they resolve and
your vision will go back to normal but what's really scary and this has actually happened to
me is that visual Aura can start in the center of your vision and when you're looking at something
maybe you're trying to read letters on a page it's almost like you can't look directly at it
because that Center smudge is blocking what you're seeing and you have to kind of look off to the
side to be able to actually read the letters or look at what you're trying to look at so it can
be really frightening uh at first but then like I said it can slowly morph and eventually will fade
off and this is something that can happen in one or both eyes and it's kind of a mystery in the
eye world but still something worth getting your eyes checked out in fact I go more into detail in
this video I'll put that link in the description if you want to learn more about that now before
we get into the fifth reason there really are many reasons and many conditions that can cause
blurry vision in one eye the takeaway home message here is to go into your eye doctor if you have a
symptom of sudden blurry vision in one I don't even wait call in for an emergency visit just
to see what's going on also try and get into your comprehensive eye exams there are a lot of these
conditions that we can catch before it gets to that stage where it starts blurring up the center
vision and something that we can proactively and prevent hopefully by catching it in your
comprehensive normal eye exams and just out of curiosity because there are many conditions that
can cause this if this has ever happened to you leave it in the comments I'm kind of C curious to
see what you did about it number five is diabetes Now this one can be more common for blurry vision
sudden blurry vision and one or both eyes and there's a few different ways it can blur up
the vision if you're someone that has high blood sugar the crystal lens in the eye where you get
cataracts can actually soak up that blood sugar and change the shape of that lens that can change
the prescription of your eye and that can make it feel like your vision went blurry all of a sudden
now typically this happen happens in both eyes it can happen in one eye but usually it happens
in both eyes and another reason along the same lines as eye stroke is the diabetes can actually
damage the blood vessels in your eyes where they can actually pop and leak fluid and bleed in the
back of your eye and that fluid can accumulate and cause macular edema or swelling in the center
portion of your eye the center portion of your vision and this might have similar symptoms to
the migraine where you look at something and maybe just the center portion of it you can't see so it
makes it feel like you have to look to the side or up or down to actually see what you're looking at
because it feels like the center is blurred out or you might have a segment in the center Vision
that's blurred out or smudged out and this can be similar to the eye stroke you might have pop blood
vessels in your eyes not even know it until that fluid accumulates and causes that edema in the
immaculate and then it really blurs your vision and this like the eye stroke you'll probably
get involved with a retinal specialist to try and treat that edema that's in your macula I actually
went into more detail how your blood sugar and diabetes can blur your vision in this video right
here I definitely recommend checking out this one next I'm Dr Neal Guymon, Dr. EyeGuy, stay focused