Question
QUESTION: Dear Mrs. Placentra Johnson,
I have a strange question. I have been traveling a lot over the past couple of days and with a terrible head cold. My ears have been getting painfully pressurized on the airplane and so I have been repeatedly plugging my nose, closing my eyes and blowing really hard to pop my ears. I know this is a common practice to pop ears, but I always feel like I am straining my eyes and am worried about the effects this could have on my vision. Could this have potentially damaging effects and if so, what could happen if someone does this a lot or if they blow too hard?
Thanks!
ANSWER: I don't know how hard you are blowing, but that is supposed to be bad for your nose! As for your eyes, I simply cannot imagine blowing hard enough to damage your eyes but as you say you feel strain, it could be putting pressure on them. In this case, I suppose the logical worst case scenario is a detached retina. I have never heard of this happening from a person blowing their nose, but it is possible. Much as I don't like to see people use drugs unless they really need them, couldn't you just take a decongestant to minimize the head pressure? (my apologies if you are already taking them and still have this symptom)
---------- FOLLOW-UP ----------
QUESTION: Thank you for your response, but I just have one final concern- I suppose I am possibly being overly paranoid but my grandfather had glaucoma and went blind and I have always feared that I could develop it as well. I read about it and I know it is a result of increased pressure in the eyes. I was thinking perhaps that by putting pressure on the eyes by plugging my nose and blowing, I would be accelerating the possibility of developing glaucoma. Is this reasonable to assume?
Answer
The answer to your question is almost 100% no. There are two main types of glaucoma (and many subtypes)
The first of these - open angle glaucoma - is caused by long-term lack of nourishment to the nerves that give you your vision. This lack may come from too high a pressure in the eye. But this would not be the kind of "pressure" you would put on them by blowing your nose. It would result from too much fluid in the eye, causing the pressure from within the eye to be too high. In blowing your nose, you could not increase this pressure within the eye, but could only put pressure on the eye from the outside. So there is no likelihood you could accelerate open angle glaucoma by blowing your nose.
The second type is very rare - narrow angle glaucoma. In this case, the angle in the front of the eye, out of which the fluid inside the eye drains, becomes blocked and too much fluid builds up. If you already have a relatively narrow angle, there is the extremely small chance you could cause the angle to close off by some mechanism of pressure from outside the eye. But usually even this is caused by factors within the eye. Next time you go for an eye exam, just ask the doctor to tell you if you have a healthy wide angle, such that it could not close accidentally. If so, then the answer to whether you could accelerate narrow angle glaucoma by blowing your nose is also no.
