unequal pupil size following head injury

The cause is often unknown, but it sometimes happens after an injury or lack of blood flow.īrain injury: A head injury can sometimes cause your pupils to become bigger than normal or two different sizes. You may have been born with it, but it’s usually caused by something that affects the nerves around your eyes.Īdie syndrome : Sometimes called Holmes-Adie syndrome, it makes one pupil larger than normal and slow to react to light. Horner’s syndrome: This condition makes a pupil shrink. A tumor in this gland can make your pupil bigger.

Pituitary gland tumor: This gland controls several other glands that make hormones.

If the aneurysm is small, you might not even know it’s there, but it can be dangerous if it grows, ruptures, and leaks blood into the space around your brain. If you also have a headache and double vision, it can be a sign of an aneurysm - a weak area in the wall of a blood vessel. It’s often caused by pressure on one of the nerves that control eye movements. Third cranial nerve palsy: This dangerous condition that can make one pupil dilate. A coloboma in the iris usually leads to the pupil being longer than it should be, sometimes giving it a keyhole-like shape. Though it is rarely the case, it can be a sign of a bigger problem if anisocoria just shows up or the size of your two pupils is suddenly different for no apparent reason.Ĭoloboma: This happens when part of your eye doesn’t form the right way before you’re born. If you don’t have other symptoms, you might compare the size of your pupils with older photos of yourself to try to figure out when it happened. Perhaps the best-known person with this condition was the singer David Bowie, whose left eye was permanently dilated after an injury. Some conditions that can affect your pupils include:Īnisocoria: This is when one pupil is larger than the other. If you notice any sudden change in the size of your pupils and there’s no known reason, see your doctor right away. Sometimes they’ll put medicated eye drops into your eyes to dilate them and make it easier to see into your eyeball. Your doctor also can use what’s called a “swinging light test” to find out if your pupils react to light the same way. For instance, if you’ve had a blow to the head and one or both of your pupils are dilated - larger than normal - that can be a sign of a serious brain injury. The size of your pupils and how they react to light can help diagnose certain health problems. Doctors can look at your pupils for clues about your health. Pupils are the dark-colored openings at the center of your eyes that let light in.

Unequal pupil size following head injury