Understanding Heterochromia

Not many people know what "heterochromia" is but they have for sure seen it in the eyes of be it their neighbours, loved ones, children or even animals. The first and obvious observation method to identify a heterochromia is to check whether both of your eyes are the same color or not. The latter option would suggest that you belong to less than a percent of population who actually have it. Nothing to be afraid of though, since we find it as quite a unique feature in fact. I believe now you are wondering "why and from where does it come from?". Fair enough, heterochromia has different origins. To be very specific: it is either something you are born with, or something you have acquired throughout your lifetime.

Mostly, however, people are naturally born with heterochromia. Causes are genetic and usually happen due to "mosaicism" - presence of two or more populations of cells that have different genotype from a single egg. Other cause might happen due to a "congenital disorder" which usually happens when embryo is only developing. These disorders might be detected through a prenatal diagnosis, but sometimes only become obvious when the child is born.

There is also a difference between darker and lighter iris. Both of these have various causes that need to be addressed to a specialist if you notice your child is born with different eyes.

Now there are also people who acquire heterochromia irridum throughout their life. It might happen due to injury or inflammation of the eye. Sometimes even certain eye drops used for a long period of time can cause a change of your eye color. It can happen that a person with blue eyes gets a blunt trauma of the eye which then triggers an iron deposition of blood vessels, which in its turn results in the iris getting darker. As I mentioned previously, certain eye drops can also cause switch in the eye color because they trigger melanin synthesis. If the color gets darker, it usually happens due to "prostoglandins" range of drops. These are taken usually to lower ocular pressure of patients suffering from glaucoma. Heterochromia acquired from drops most of the time has a centric look, which means the color changes around the pupil only. If on the contrary the eye gets lighter in color, it might happen due to "uveitis" - an ocular inflammation disease which has a diverse number of symptoms. What happens is that eye gets a slightly washed out appearance, which is hardly noticeable if you already have pale eye color. Other reasons might be due to: chronic iritis / leukemia / neoplasm-melanomas and else.

Heterochromia can also be either: complete (one eye has a different color), sectoral (usually one eye has a darker spot in it) or central (different color around the pupil of the eye). Most of the people born with the last one might not even give it that much attention thinking it is a naturally inherited trait, while in other two cases you might want to double check what exactly has caused the change in the eye color from the very start.

If you have noticed recently a difference in your eyes that was not present before, we do recommend having your sight checked with an opthalmologist along with related blood test to determine reason for an acquired heterochromia. Sometimes though, when we age, iris loses melanin naturally resulting in our eyes having a light blue rim around them anyway.

In any case having heterochromia does not affect quality of life in a negative way. As long as you know what is the cause of it and have your eyes checked regularly - you are absolutely fine. Moreover, most people are mesmerized by eyes of a different color. Especially in a husky like this: