Diastolic pressure

[Daniellenaom]

What is Diastolic pressure? And what are some factors that affect intraocular pressure?

[Joan M Pernoud, MD]

1) BP does not affect eye pressure

2) A blow to the eye can cause damage to the filtering mechanism of the eye, cause scarring, and result in glaucoma or high intraocular pressure.

3) Lasik does not change the pressure but can cause the pressure readings to appear to be a little lower than it really is due to the thinness of the cornea.

[Daniellenaom]

Can things like high blood pressure or a blow to the ye effect intraocular pressure. And can having Lasik change the pressure.

[Joan M Pernoud, MD]

These are two different pressures

Diastolic refers to blood pressure with systolic being the upper number reflecting the force of blood coming from the heart and the tone of the blood vessels. Diastolic blood pressure is the second number and reflects the tone of the blood vessel, it's constriction, so to speak, in between heartbeats. Normal is said to be 120/80.

Intraocular pressure is the pressure in the eye which is determined by the rate of production of aqueous fluid by the ciliary body which sits behind where the colored iris meets the white of the eye inside the eye and the filtering ability at the trabecular meshwork close to the ciliary body except on the anterior side between the iris and the cornea. If anything interferes with the outflow of fluid, the fluid cannot escape very well, and the eye pressure can go up leading to damage to the optic nerve and this is called glaucoma.