recent eye exam - Eye & Vision Message Board

matteo · 01-14-2001, 10:02 AM

i recently had an eye exam and the dr told me i have a disease in one eye. he described it as the white part growing into the colored part. does anyone have this, or heard of it? i didn't quite understand what he said about it. he said something about it being connected to ultraviolet exposure. i would like to do some research about this but i cannot remember what he called it.does anyone know if this is a serious problem?

Springer · 02-16-2001, 09:06 PM

Sounds like you have whats called a pterygium. Like you said, its a condition where the clear tissue thats over the white part of your eye starts to incroach on your cornea. This occurs usually due to UV exposure, wind, dust, etc irritants to that soft tissue. If it grows out far onto the cornea it will start to induce astigmatism and decrease your vision. At that point, you might have to have it removed. Most of the time, they wont go that far though. This is fairly common and isnt too much to worry about. Dont get this confused w/ pinguecula though...pinguecula is about the same thing except it doesnt grow onto the cornea but just grows beside the cornea. Just about everyone will have a pingueculas.