Have you ever heard of exercise causing pupils to dilate?

[theres126]

Hi-
I've written on the community board about my daughter's eyes, and she had an opthamologist appt. this morning about the problem.  In a nutshell, she's been noticing the last few weeks that her eyes are becoming extremely dilated when exercising - particularly during basketball practice. When she brought it to my attention, we noticed that her pupils are different sizes. I looked back, and from what I can tell, her pupils have been different sizes (in pictures) for at least 1 1/2 years. We'd never really noticed before last week.....

Her "bigger" eye - the left one, when dilating at practice looks to be almost all pupil. After practice, it goes down.

According to two opthamologists now, everything looks within normal range. All the eye/light tests they did in the office, the stereo test, etc.  The optic nerves look fine. Both eyes dilate normally when they had her in the dark, and contracted in the light. The only thing they could say about the exercise correlation was that it was interesting.

They didn't see anything worrisome, they said, or they'd refer her to a neuro-opthamologist. She did hit her head playing basketball a few weeks ago, but it wasn't too hard, and they said she'd have more symptoms if it was causing the problem.

It's definitely freaking her out a bit at practice, since the left pupil is huge. She doesn't remember this happening before, and she's been active and exercising for years.

Have you ever heard of exercise having this efffect?  It's definitely affecting her shot - her depth perception as well. She's been having a lot of airballs!

Thanks!

[RunningL8]

Has your daughter ever had a migraine?  For several years I've had one pupil that periodically enlarges, and I think in my particular case it's related to migraine activity.  If I get a migraine headache, my left pupil will enlarge.  But sometimes I don't get the actual headache, just the larger pupil; I was told this is called a "migraine equivalent."  I'm very light sensitive, so light can trigger the migraine equivalent/larger pupil, as can PMS/ovulation.  Sometimes it doesn't seem to have any particular trigger, though.  I once actually had my pupil enlarge while in a neuro-ophthalmologists's office, and he's the one that diagnosed the problem as related to my predisposition towards migraine activity.  I think it's worth an appointment, if only to ease your mind!

[Michael J Kutryb, MD]

I'm sorry but I don't have a lot to add.  It is possible she could have an Adie's pupil in the eye with the larger pupil or perhaps horner's syndrome in the eye with the smaller pupil.  Very rarely, other neurologic problems are to blame and sometimes is just a natural or physiologic difference that is not harmful.  Sometimes it is not always initially evident which pupil is the abnormal one - the larger or smaller.  The neuro-ophthalmologist should be a big help.  They are very brainy about problems involving the pupils.  Good Luck.

MJK MD