Female Eye Health: How Hormones Affect Your Eyesight Over Time

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Eye health is crucial for men and women alike but the latter can be affected more given the differences in the bodies. For the female gender, there is a difference in hormones that are secreted in the body that change with time and are found in greater concentrations than is true for men. 

This entails more eye health concerns that require a greater variety of interventions by eye doctors. The effects of the two main hormones of concern are mentioned below to help you stay aware and take apt measures to prevent extreme fluctuations in their levels in your body. 

Estrogen And Progesterone

What The Hormones Help Achieve?

Estrogen is a female sex hormone that is involved in maturing the female body from the time they enter puberty. From secondary sexual characters to developing the female reproductive system, this hormone plays a vital role during a woman’s puberty, pregnancy as well as menopause. The progesterone hormone is a steroid sex hormone that is heavily functions on regulating the different aspects of womanhood such as menstruation, pregnancy, and even menopause among other vital life processes. 

Puberty

The estrogen hormone, in particular, can cause direct vision changes starting in adolescence where its sudden surge can cause nearsightedness in many developing girls. Your distance vision gets affected causing blurry eyesight when viewing objects that are present at a far distance. At an eye clinic, you can diagnose your eye problems and acquire optimal solutions to have them treated as soon as possible for your benefit. Even during menstruation, estrogen levels rise in the female body and cause minor changes such as constant watering of the eyes. 

Pregnancy

During any trimester of your pregnancy, experiencing any blurred vision or focusing issues can also be expected as estrogen can cause such side effects with its increased concentrations in the body. The effects are expected to last in the body long after pregnancy and often fade away with time as the hormones in the body once again revert back to their original concentrations. This can be expected after the mother ends the practice of breastfeeding her child as milk production is also influenced by these two hormones. 

Menopause 

As women enter their menopausal stage of life, dry eyes often accompany a variety of body changes. Ladies often begin to depend on a lot more tablets and medications such as antihistamines and even antidepressants as their body reveals drastic changes with the shift in reproductive life. These medicines often place women at an increased risk for dry eyes which is the condition wherein the eyes are unable to keep themselves lubricated and hence need interventions to reduce discomfort. This is caused by the decline in estrogen levels that otherwise function to increase the elasticity of the cornea and also the oil gland production around the eyes. 

Addressing Hysterectomy

Hysterectomy, also known as the surgical removal of the uterus, a part of the female reproductive system, can also present changes and alteration to the female eye vision. Eye specialists have observed an initial change in the eyesight of patients who have undergone this procedure. Vision often stabilizes and returns to normal once hormone replacement therapy is started to recover the body of the lost hormone surges and levels. 

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