Can Histoplasmosis Make You Go Blind?

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Question:
Can histoplasmosis make you go blind?

Answer:
Blindness is a relative term that can mean significant loss of peripheral vision, disabling loss of central vision or more total loss of vision varying from being able to see movements only to no light perception. Histoplasmosis is very often asymptomatic showing just peripherally located scars in the retina called histo spots. However, involvement of the central part of the retina called the macula can cause scarring resulting in severe loss of central visual acuity. More rarely, one can get a diffuse infection of the eye called endophthalmitis that can even cause total loss of light perception (this would be an extreme case and is, as I said, rare.) So the answer to your question is yes.

Answered by: Gary Hirshfield, MD

Categories: Eye Diseases 

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