During a routine checkup, your ophthalmologist may notice calcium deposits in your eye. Calcium deposition in the eye can cause a range of completely asymptomatic conditions to dangerous conditions for vision. The location of these calcium deposits in the eye is one of the factors that determine whether you face a high-risk condition or not.
What causes calcium deposits in the eye?
In the following, we will examine the causes of calcium deposition in the eye. The most common sites for calcium deposition are in the cornea and vitreous humor.
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Calcium deposition in the cornea of the eye
The most superficial layer of our eyeball is the cornea. Calcium deposition in the cornea can occur in the following two general states:
- Deposition of myeloid and peripheral calcium:
It is usually fixed and does not cause vision problems. An example of this is Vogt’s limbal girdle.
- In some cases, calcium deposits in the cornea become progressive and larger, and as they increase in size, they affect the transparency of the cornea, and therefore vision changes.
If you have band keratopathy, your doctor will use a specialized medicine to improve your vision.
Causes of calcium deposition in the cornea
We have said that corneal calcium deposits that do not remain fixed and enlarge and reduce the central transparency of the cornea are called bands keratopathy.
The most common cause of band keratopathy is chronic ocular inflammation. The appropriate treatment for these cases is the use of a specialized liquid called EDTA.
Calcium deposits in the cornea after resection through the method above will be able to return and in case of recurrence, treatment will be repeated.
Calcium deposition in wind vitreous
Body vitreous forms most of our eyeball and has a jelly-like structure that fills the back of the pupil and the front of the retina. The vitreous humor is considered as a gel that fills the eyeball. Small deposits of calcium can float in the gel, and the doctor will notice when light hits them.
These floating calcium deposits in the vitreous humor are sometimes felt by the infected person as a floater, meaning that they see moving objects in their field of vision, but most people have no symptoms.
Calcium deposition at the base of the eye
Calcium lesions are sometimes located directly in front of the optic nerve that is called optic nerve head drusen
The optic nerve enters the back of the eyeball, and the deposition of calcium at the base of the eye refers to the deposition at the point of entry and the so-called head of optic nerve.
Cause of calcium deposition at the base of the eye
In most cases, it occurs spontaneously.
Sometimes the cause of calcium deposition at the base of the eye can be hereditary
This calcium deposit is usually asymptomatic and does not require treatment in asymptomatic cases.
It is very rare for a person to have vision problems and vision loss.
Calcium and AMD deposits
Research in 2015 showed that calcium deposits behind the eyes can be a major cause of age-related macular degeneration or AMD.
AMD is one of the leading causes of progressive and painless blindness in people over the age of sixty-five, during which the macular point of vision, or macula, degenerates or collapses.