In fact, typically high blood pressure (hypertension) doesn’t cause any sign. That’s why it is often considered as a popular silent killer. However, sometime it may cause symptoms, particularly if it gets worse to an advanced stage. Red eyes and red face may some of these symptoms, but they are not always caused by hypertension. To keep safe and for prompt treatment, you should not evaluate any sign or symptom that you are experiencing on your own in an attempt to self-diagnose hypertension – see a healthcare professional for more advice!
Red eyes associated with hypertension are typically characterized by some blood spots in the eyes (subconjunctival hemorrhage) that can affect the genuine color of the eyes. They are pretty common to be found in diabetic and hypertensive people, according to the American Heart Association (AHA).
Nevertheless, experts believe if hypertension does have an effect in causing red eyes, it is not directly related.
Additionally, you may also wonder whether hypertension cause floaters in the eyes – fortunately, there is no correlation between both problems.
The blood vessels are crucial to distribute blood from the heart to cells of the body – these kinds of blood vessels are called arteries. They also have crucial function to carry deoxygenated blood (blood poor in oxygen) back to the heart – we call veins for the blood vessels with this function.
Therefore, blood vessels can be found in any parts of the body, including areas around and in the eyes.
High blood pressure means that the force /pressure of blood against the wall of blood vessel increases higher than normal. This can make the blood vessels (especially the arteries) strain more.
Typically, the thick walls are found in larger blood vessels. But for smaller ones (such as blood vessels in the eyes) have thinner walls and are also relatively smaller /even much smaller in diameter!
And when the pressure inside these very small blood vessels is too high or higher than normal, they can swell and eventually can break which then may lead to small hemorrhages in the eyes.
Since eyes are transparent because they are filled with clear liquid, there is chance for the hemorrhages to be noticeable /visible. As a result, the genuine appearance of the eyes can change to be red.
However red eyes are not one of common signs of hypertension. But regardless to the issue of whether or not this symptom is caused by high blood pressure, see your doctor promptly if you have this problem to keep safe and for prompt treatment.
While small hemorrhages can be potential to affect the ability of your vision, red eyes also can be associated with a wide range of different health conditions or factors which some may become serious health problems – these may include:
- Foreign thing /object in the eyes.
- The improper use of eye drops, particularly if they are used too often.
- Corneal ulcers.
- Bacteria and allergic conjunctivitis.
- Poor moisture in the eyes (dry eyes).
- Entropion and ectropion (both problems are associated with the wrong position of the eyelid).
- Hay fever (a condition related with an allergic reaction to allergens (both indoor and outdoor allergens like pet dander and pollen)). It often causes cold-like symptoms such as sneezing, runny nose, and sometime itchy eyes which then may cause red eyes.
- Inflammations that affect any part of the eyes such as inflammation due to broken arteries or veins in the eyes (medically called as subconjunctival hemorrhage), cornea inflammation (keratitis), the inflammation of the eye’s colored part (iritis), and inflammation of the eye’s white part (scleritis).
- And many more – talk with an ophthalmologist or your doctor for more detailed information about problems that can trigger and make the eyes become red!
In essence, the red face occurs when there are lots of blood vessels in the face expand or dilate. The mechanism of this dilation will allow more blood to flow through blood vessels in the face which then may change the appearance of the face to be red. But actually it is not a sign of hypertension.
While sometime red eyes may be indirectly related with high blood pressure, red face or facial flushing is clearly not caused by hypertension (though it may occur when your systolic and diastolic pressures are high).
In addition, diastolic pressure is the measurement of blood pressure (commonly given in mm Hg) when the heart doesn’t pump the blood or ‘between beats’. And for systolic pressure, it is the number (also given in mm Hg) of blood pressure when the heart works /contracts /pumps the blood or ‘when the heart beats’.
Red face can come unpredictably. It may occur during stressful period, with alcohol consumption, after exposure to hot temperature /hot water /sun exposure, during exercise, after eating spicy foods, after exposure to cold weather, or even may also be triggered by the use of certain skin-care products – some of these factors also can temporarily increase systolic and diastolic pressure.
Some people are relatively easier than others to get facial flushing. In many cases, it’s perfectly normal condition and there should be nothing to worry about it!
But if you think that it occurs abnormally or without known cause, see a doctor for clearly diagnosis and to get a prompt treatment!