Blurred Vision Up In The Air

You may not have realized that altitudes may change your vision. This happens to mountain climbers, astronauts and people who have had certain eye surgeries. It occurs because the eye is really a bag of water with two lenses (cornea and crystalline lens) which focuses the light.

So being under pressure changes in the air pressure around us may change the shape of our eyes.

Dr Kramer and colleagues at the University of Texas in Houston reported that astronauts are experiencing “squashes eyeball” in space. His article in Radiology demonstrated this effect with MRIs. But this effect can occur in lesser amounts with climbing, skiing, and long plane rides. It may occur even in subterranean experiences such as deep sea diving, cave exploration or dwelling underground for prolonged periods of time.

I suspect that this is reversible since most of us have never noticed this and patients with previous Radial Keratotomy have returned to baseline vision after mountain climbing. Since the eyes are so intrinsicly valuable in all our endeavors it behooves us to be aware of this subtle (for most of us) phenomena.