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Pupil Dilation - Pots?


Always hoping

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With all the crazy POTS symptoms, there is one symptom I have that no one has been able to explain yet. I'm hoping one of you experts can! About a year after getting sick, my eyes started to dilate differently. One pupil gets very big and the other gets very small. If happens sporadically, lasts about 40 minutes and only occurs in the evenings. It was diagnosed as "benign blah, blah, blah aniscoria". (After the benign part I was happy so I don't remember the rest. LOL). Does anyone else have this happen to them or do you think it is unrelated to POTS? Just curious. Thanks!

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Funny Merlin! Since it took 4 years to figure out POTS, I'm sure many of my doctors wanted to ask me that same question with all the crazy symptoms I was telling them.

Katybug - One of the things that the doctors ruled out on me was "optical migraines". It may be that your pupil response is related to your migraines. Sorry that you have them.

It is normally my left pupil that gets small and the right gets big, but it has happened the opposite also. It's very strange. The first time it happened, you couldn't see the black in my left eye (the pupil was so small) or any of the color in my right (only the black of my pupil). Freaky! When it happens now it isn't as severe of a difference. Still freaky, just not as much.

It makes sense that it's an involuntary reaction, but none of the doctors seem to think it a POTS symptom.

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I have this and still have it. Because my pupils can enlarge to the point that there is no iris left I cannot be under most lighting. I had to quit my job and couldn't continue going to my study classes. When I did persist it resulted in excessive tearing, eye pain and blood shot eyes. I couldn't function like this so I went to see an Opthalmologist at an Eye Hospital whom found the size of my pupils quite interesting. He brought the Professor of the clinic over as he was a Neuro Opthalmologist and after listening to some of my other crazy symptoms (Which are now all under the label POTS) he done some examination and mentioned it could be 'excessive sympathetic activity'. Fast forward 4 years later and it is still ongoing. However do I note that the longer I rest the better my eyes become. Not only symptomatic wise but also in constriction and dilation. So it could make sense why when I was upright for long periods (work, study) and having POTS the sympathetic nervous system was working on overdrive to keep me upright?

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I've seen this discussed on the forum before as adies pupil. Mostly it isn't serious, it can however be a symptom of other more serious neurological conditions. If you are on here and also have other autonomomic and dysautonomia symptoms along with the pupils, it might not hurt to research some of the conditions mentioned in this article to make sure you don't fit other associated symptoms/conditions. Neurological disease often can be a primary cause for dysautonomia and pots symptoms. Happy reading.

http://www.journalofoptometry.org/en/bilateral-tonic-pupils-secondary-to/articulo/90302861/

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My pupils do strange things at times, from getting huge during an episode, to pulsating, to dilating unevenly. It is often noticable at night, my left one dilates normally, my right one stays small. However, on at least 3 occasions, my right one dilated and stayed like that for several hours. I noticed, because my vision was off.

I had a CT scan, MRI, and was told it's because of dysautonomia. I've seen a neuro-opthamologist, but my regular opthamologist was most helpful. He said no nerves are damaged in the eye, but my right pupil is also not exactly round. They were perfectly normal before dysautonomia, so I'm sure it is related to this condition.

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  • 1 year later...
  • 7 years later...

THIS IS SO CRAZY! I first noticed my pupils were different sizes when in the mental hospital, they thought something was really wrong, and called my mom. After I got out I went to see an eye doctor and they said everything looked normal. A year or two later I get diagnosed with POTS, even though I’ve been having symptoms for seven years. I looked back at old photos and even in those my pupil sizes are different. POTS isn’t rare and actually is pretty common, but not well known. More studies should be conducted on POTS including as to why this happens. 

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