Thyroid Eye Disease

Thyroid eye disease (thyroid orbitopathy or TO) is a condition of inflammation of the soft tissues, such as fat and muscles, surrounding the eyes.

The condition most commonly occurs in association with an overactive thyroid gland, but also occurs with an under active thyroid gland.

The most common problem is dry eyes, because in an auto-immune disease, more than one organ may be attacked, and commonly the thyroid and all the orbital contents are attacked by the immune system.

As the orbital contents, i.e., the soft tissues around the eye, become inflamed, all the tissues of the orbit become red and swollen.

·         The eyelids become puffy and red (lid swelling)

·         The muscles of the eyelids contract, producing a staring appearance (lid retraction)
 The muscles and fat surrounding the eye swells, pushing the eyes forward so that they bulge out of the orbits (exophthalmos)

·         Lid retraction and exophthalmos make the dry eye symptoms worse.

·         The swelling of the muscles which move the eyes produces unequal movements and double vision (diplopia)

·         The orbits may become painful, particularly on eye movement.

If the muscles become swollen, then this can affect how well the muscles are able to control the ability of the eyes to move together. This can cause double vision. This can make activities like reading very difficult, and driving very dangerous. In fact it is illegal to drive with double vision.

In severe Thyroid Orbitopathy the pressure inside the orbits increases, compressing the optic nerve and causing sight problems where the sight may become dim, colours begin to look washed out, and the visual field may constrict. If this starts to happen, then medical attention needs to be sought as soon as possible, to reduce the pressure on the optic nerve before permanent damage occurs.

Read the original article about Thyroid disease published on http://www.rnib.org.uk and to know more about thyroid problems you can read the articles on the British Thyroid Association and Thyroid Eye Disease Charitable Trust (TEDct).

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