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Hypotony

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Hypotony

This material will help you understand hypotony and how to manage it.

What is hypotony?
If you have hypotony, this means that your eye pressure (intraocular pressure)
is too low. Hypotony can often cause decreased vision.

What causes hypotony?


The most common causes of hypotony are glaucoma surgeries, chronic eye
inflammation, or a detached retina.

How is hypotony treated?


The treatment of hypotony depends on its cause. It can include medicines or a
procedure. After glaucoma surgery, common ways to treat hypotony include:
• Changing your medications
• Sleeping at night with an eye shield, if there is a wound leak after
glaucoma surgery
• Patching the leak with a Band-Aid contact lens
• You might also be asked to return to the operating room to repair the
leak, or if medications cannot heal the problem.

To take care of your eye at home, you will need to be very careful about your
eye pressure:
• You cannot bend over so that your head goes below your knees as that
causes the pressure to fluctuate in the eye and puts too much strain on it.
• You cannot lift anything that is more than 5 pounds because we do not
want you to strain. When you strain, the eye pressure fluctuates.
• If you are constipated, you should take a stool softener.
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Having very low eye pressure puts you at risk for bleeding inside the eye. If
your eye bleeds, you will have pain and decreased vision. If at any time you
develop worsening pain or vision, you need to call your eye doctor right away.
To decrease the chances of bleeding, you should not take any blood thinners
like motrin or aspirin. If you have mild pain, you can take Tylenol. If you are
taking a blood thinner like Coumadin®, you will need to talk to all of your
doctors about this.

For more information, scan these codes with your smartphone or visit
the websites listed.

http://www.aao.org/publications/eyenet/200910/pearls.cfm

http://www.glaucoma.org/treatment/hypotony.php

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Disclaimer: This document contains information and/or instructional materials developed by
the University of Michigan Health System (UMHS) for the typical patient with your condition.
It may include links to online content that was not created by UMHS and for which UMHS
does not assume responsibility. It does not replace medical advice from your health care
provider because your experience may differ from that of the typical patient. Talk to your
health care provider if you have any questions about this document, your condition or your
treatment plan.

Author: Shayla Wilson, MPH candidate


Reviewers: Gale Oren, MILS and Paula Anne Newman-Casey, MD, MS

Patient Education by University of Michigan Health System is licensed under a Creative Commons
Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License. Last Revised 11/2014

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