Blood vessel in eye

[Sarahsah]

One night, I noticed that on the white of my eye, a small vessel had appeared. It looked criss-crossed and it was red. I was surprised as I had never seen it before. After a night's rest, I went to check in the mirror and it had turned to a light brownish colour and eventually, it faded away. What could have caused this vessel, just this vessel to become so reddish that night? When I saw it, I was kinda worried that I caused a new eye vessel to grow or something. I do not wear contacts and neither did I hurt my eye that night.

[John C Hagan III, MD, FACS, FAAO]

Usually the stimulus is hypoxia or decrease oxygen to the tissues. Move on unless something else happens then see an Eye MD.

JCH III MD

[Sarahsah]

Hi, thanks for the reassurance. This incident kinda bugs me sometimes. So what causes blood vessels to form?    

[John C Hagan III, MD, FACS, FAAO]

Blood vessels don't form that fast or go away that quickly. You most likely had a small broken blood vessel on the eye (subconjunctival hemorrhage) very common and not a serious problem. These often happen spontaneiously because the blood vessels are so delicate.

JCH III MD