Located at the back of your eye, the macula is the part of your retina that is responsible for central vision. In addition to retinopathy, studies have shown that long COVID can lead to nodules growing on your macula. Therefore, if you are experiencing blurred vision at any point after catching COVID – even if you feel that you have otherwise recovered – it is important that you get an eye test to check for any issues with your vision and eye health, to prevent the condition from worsening any further. It’s thought that retinopathy can occur a few weeks after recovering from the initial COVID-19 illness, and blurred vision can be a symptom of retinopathy. It’s a condition that people with diabetes may also suffer from. They found that the virus can lead to retinopathy (disease of the retina), which is when the blood supply to the retina is blocked or restricted, which can impair your vision. While some people report experiencing blurry vision while they are still ill with the virus, experts have revealed that the impact of COVID on eye health and vision can last for a lot longer past the initial period of illness. However, one of the lesser known symptoms of long COVID is vision deterioration.Įye specialists are starting to notice that those who have seemingly recovered from COVID-19 are now beginning to develop new eye-related complications. Some of the ongoing symptoms of long COVID include extreme fatigue, shortness of breath, chest pain or tightness and nausea.

Long COVID (or post-COVID syndrome) is defined as: “Signs and symptoms that develop during or following an infection consistent with COVID-19 which continue for more than 12 weeks and are not explained by an alternative diagnosis”. While COVID may only be infectious for 2 weeks (hence the reason for a 2 week quarantine period), its typical symptoms can last for many weeks and months after initially catching the virus – this is called ‘long COVID’. Therefore, suffering from pink eye along with other COVID symptoms can, unfortunately, be extremely unpleasant even if your symptoms are mild. Short-term impacts of COVID on the eyes can be the mild blurry vision and pink eye symptoms mentioned previously, including tearing, a gritty sensation in the eyes and discharge that forms into a crust – which makes opening your eyes quite difficult. It can also be spread by touching a surface or object with the virus present from an infected person and then touching the nose, mouth, or eyes. What is the short-term impact of COVID on the eyes?Īs we’ve all learned by now, COVID is primarily spread through respiratory droplets that are produced when someone infected with COVID sneezes or coughs. Nevertheless, if you are experiencing any changes to your vision or the colour and consistency of your eye discharge, please visit your eye doctor (provided you have no other COVID symptoms of course). If you are experiencing thick eye discharge (no matter what the colour is), it may not be a symptom of COVID but it could be a sign of bacterial conjunctivitis. Thankfully, blurry vision from pink eye – whether it was caused by COVID or any other virus or bacteria – is typically mild and infrequent. Other symptoms that can potentially be a sign of pink eye include: In some cases, conjunctivitis and other similar eye conditions can lead to mildly blurry vision. Pink eye is an infection of the transparent membrane (conjunctiva) that lines your eyelid and covers the white area (sclera) in your eye. In one study from the initial 2020 outbreak of COVID in Hubei Province, China, it was found that 31.6% of patients (almost 1 in 3) had pink eye symptoms after contracting COVID. In this piece, we will explore how COVID affects the eyes and what impact it can have in the short and long term.įrom what is currently known about COVID and its possible symptoms, COVID does not seem to directly cause blurry vision – what it can cause is viral conjunctivitis (pink eye) or symptoms that closely resemble pink eye. How COVID can affect the eyes, however, is less well known – nevertheless, studies have shown that COVID does have some form of impact on the eyes. Some of the most common COVID symptoms are now widely well known, such as a fever, cough, shortness of breath and the loss of smell and taste. Over the past 18 months, COVID-19 has wreaked havoc on the world and has affected all of us in many different ways.

Eyeballs hurt with covid