Caring for Your Eyes

When Your Eyesight Issues Might Have Started Elsewhere in Your Body

11 February 2020

Ramona Matthews

When you wear glasses and your vision becomes blurry, it's probably a sign that your glasses are no longer up to the task of correcting your sight, right? This is certainly possible and can warrant a trip to your optometrist to see if your prescription needs to be altered. Intermittently blurry vision that seemingly readjusts itself can be a sign that your eyes need to be examined, but when it's accompanied by other curious symptoms, it might be that the problem didn't necessarily originate in your eyes.

Issues With Your Vision

If your eyesight temporarily blurs, if you experience occasional sensitivity to light, and if you are affected by ocular spasms (twitching of the nerves behind and around the eyes), then your vision will need to be checked. But when these issues are present in conjunction with other symptoms, the underlying problem might in fact be dental.

Other Symptoms

Are the problems with your eyesight accompanied by headaches, a soreness in your jaw muscles and even pain in your neck? You might be suffering from temporomandibular joint disorder (TMD). Broadly speaking, this is caused by a dysfunction of the joint that connects your jaw to your skull. It can be caused by your jaw, as in when closed, your upper and lower jaws are misaligned. This creates undue stress on your temporomandibular joint, which results in the issues you've been experiencing, even those related to your eyesight.

Primary Treatment

See your dentist if you suspect that you are affected by TMD. Aligning your jaw will alleviate many of your symptoms. This can be as easy as wearing a specialised mouthguard overnight. Sometimes braces are required, and in extreme cases, corrective surgery is necessary. However, if your TMD has also affected your vision, you should still schedule an appointment with your optometrist.

Have Your Vision Checked

It's rare that your ocular spasms will permanently damage your vision, and any blurriness or sensitivity to light should dissipate of their own accord. However, if you have been suffering from undiagnosed TMD, your optometrist will need to assess whether your existing prescription will need to be amended now that the underlying cause for many of your vision irregularities has been treated. It's not quite as though your vision will significantly improve once your TMD is controlled, but it will at least become more dependable and less prone to these irregularities you've been experiencing. 

TMD will be primarily treated by your dentist, but if it has spread to your vision, your optometrist will also need to make a thorough assessment.

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