Can eye problems cause headaches? Here's what you should know

Author: Dorcas Ojokuku , Bachelor of Nursing Science,(BNSc), in view, Reviewed by: Dr Azuka Ezeike, MBBS, FWACS, FMCOG, MSc (PH)

Highlights 

• Frequent headaches may not always be from stress. They could be a sign of underlying eye issues
• There's a connection between your eyes and brain, and it explains why their pain signals overlap
• Eye strain is the most common cause of eye-related headaches, and even children are affected by headaches associated with digital eye strain.
• Certain eye diseases may cause headaches 
• Migraine is a headache disorder that can be accompanied by visual symptoms 
• Preventive measures include lifestyle adjustments and regular eye checks.

Introduction 

Have you ever experienced those annoying headaches that occur after a long day of visual tasks, watching a movie, intense concentration, or use of digital devices?Your eyes and brain are closely related in function and, of course, location. As a result, problems in one may affect the other, this explains why eye pain can be felt as a pressure or pain around the head. 

Equally, people with eye conditions often complain of pain around the forehead, temple, and back of the head.Now you’re wondering, why is this so? Are headaches a side effect of eye conditions? Are the frequent pains in my head a pointer to a problem with my eyes? Should I see a doctor? These questions and more will be answered here.

How Eye Problems Can Lead to Headaches

Headaches linked to the eyes mostly come from eye strain or tired eye muscles.[1] When you stare at a screen for too long, read under bad light, or even use the wrong or expired glasses, your eyes become sore and tired. This strain can cause pain around or in your head. And here's how:

Pain signals from your eyes, forehead, and scalp all meet at a spot in the brain(brainstem). As a result, pain signals from those locations can mix up with each other. So your eyes may be tired, but your head and temples would suffer the blow, feeling like a tension headache.

In addition, if you suffer from long-sightedness, short-sightedness, or some other kinds of eye conditions that have not been properly treated, you might be prone to persistent headaches. This is because, with conditions like this, there are defects in proper eye function, so efforts to compensate for these lapses place huge pressure on your eye muscles and consequently the surrounding muscles, causing pain around your head.This means that while headaches may be a side effect of tired eyes, they may also be consequences of deeper eye or vision issues. 

Common Eye-Related Causes of Headache

Here are some causes of eye-related headaches 

• Eye strain 
• Uncorrected refractive errors
• Convergence insufficiency
• Accommodative disorders
• Eye diseases like dry eye disease, uveitis, glaucoma, and optic neuritis.

Eye Strain (Asthenopia)

Your eyes strain when its muscles (tiny ciliary muscles) get tired from overuse, particularly during tasks that require prolonged focus, like reading, driving, or staring at an image up close for too long. It’s just like how your muscles would ache after an intense leg day at the gym.Today, the most common form of eye strain is digital eye strain, also known as computer vision syndrome. This shows that the increasing use of digital devices is worsening the symptoms of eye strain, even in children.

Some of the symptoms are: [2]

• Sore, burning, or itchy eyes
• Dry eyes 
• Blurring or double vision
• Headaches
• Increased sensitivity to light (photophobia)

Uncorrected Refractive Errors 

Untreated refractive errors (vision focus issues) are common triggers of headaches[3].These refractive errors include:

• Myopia(short-sightedness): Difficulty focusing on distant objects 
• Hyperopia(long-sightedness): Difficulty focusing on near objects 
• Astigmatism: Blurred or distorted vision at all distances due to an irregularly shaped cornea or lens. 

If you are myopic, your eyes struggle to focus on distant objects, leading to eye strain, and that's accompanied by headaches. 

With hyperopia, your eyes fight to focus on near objects, causing eye fatigue and headaches. 

Astigmatism causes blurred vision at any distance and can also trigger headaches.

With these conditions, the eye muscles are trying hard to focus, consequently causing subtle but annoying cramps that feel like an ache around your head or temples. The link between your eyes and brain also contributes to what you feel as a headache.

Convergence insufficiency (CI)

CI is a binocular vision disorder where both your eyes struggle to work together and can't turn inward to focus on a near object.[4] With convergence insufficiency, you may experience:

• Blurred vision 
• Double vision 
• Exophoria (your eyes drift outward when looking at close objects)
• Eye strain or Headaches

Accommodative spasms(AS) [4]

This is also a vision focusing disorder, where the focusing system is overactive due to overstimulation of the eye nerves, even in the absence of stressful visual tasks. AS is accompanied by;

• Spasms of the eye muscles
• Esotropia (inward turning of your eyes)
• Pupil constriction (tightening)

You may experience symptoms like:

• Double vision 
• Blurry vision 
• Micropsia or macropsia (seeing things smaller or bigger than they are)
• Headaches

Other Eye Diseases That May Cause Headaches

Some diseases of the eye present with headaches as symptoms. They include:

• Dry eye disease
• Glaucoma
• Uveitis
• Optic neuritis

Dry Eye Disease(DED)

 Just as a machine that's low on oil can't work well, likewise, your eyes. With DED, your eyes produce little or poor-quality tears, which makes them irritated, burn, itch, or redden. This irritation sends pain signals to the brain, causing pain around your head. Studies have shown that the link between this disease and headaches goes both ways[5,6]; not only can it cause headaches, but persistent headaches, especially migraines, can also cause DED.

Glaucoma

A trademark symptom of glaucoma (especially open-angle glaucoma)  is elevated intraocular pressure. With this increased pressure within the eyes, significant pain from the eyes might be felt around the forehead or temples.

Uveitis

Uveitis is the inflammation(swelling) of the uvea (which consists of the iris, choroid, and ciliary body). The inflammation can cause eye pain and headaches. 

Optic neuritis

Here, the optic nerve (which transmits signals from your eyes to your brain) is inflamed and possibly damaged. According to research, optic neuritis often causes frequent and severe headaches before visual loss, often misdiagnosed as migraines [7]

How migraines affect your eyes.

Migraine is primarily a neurologic condition.[8]  It can not be referred to as an ocular cause of headache, however, it may be accompanied by visual symptoms like;

• Prolonged or atypical auras
• Visual blurring 
• Retinal migraine 
• Photophobia
• Palinopsia (you continue to see an image even after it's no more in sight)
• Visual snow 

Poor ergonomics(bad posture) and headaches

It's bad enough that endless hours on your phone and staring at a screen all day can cause eye strain headaches; having a bad posture while at it can worsen it.Slouching over your workstation, looking up or down at your screen, or maintaining some kind of awkward posture for a long time, can make your neck, shoulders, and/or upper back soreAccording to a study, a high level of poor ergonomic practices at computer workstations was found among a population already suffering from computer vision syndrome [9]

Where Does the Pain Usually Happen? 

Ocular headaches usually show up in specific areas around the head. The usual area is around or behind the eyes.Pain can, however, present in other areas around the head, forehead, or temples. It's important to figure out where the pain is so you can tell if it's because of your eyes or not.

• Eyestrain headaches are usually located behind or around the eyes.
• Headaches associated with refractive errors (HARE) are often located around the forehead or right between the eyes.
• In cases due to poor ergonomics, the pain can spread to the back of the head, your neck, or your shoulders.

When Should You See a Doctor or Optometrist

Not every headache requires you to get on your way to the eye doctor’s office. Here are some tips to help you decide when you need to get on your way there:

• Recurring headaches, especially after visual activity.

 If you always get headaches after reading, using a screen, or even driving. You may need to get your eyes checked.[6]

• Headaches accompanied by certain eye symptoms 

Like redness, itching, burning, dryness, or tired eyes.[6]

• Visual changes like blurred or double vision 

This points to something being wrong.

• Family history of eye problems

Genetics is a huge deciding factor in whether you're at risk of certain health problems. Eye problems are not an exception.[10]

•  You haven't had an eye exam in two years or ever!
• Any concerns about your eye health mean you should see your doctor!

Regular eye checks are important in maintaining good eye health, and they also help detect potential issues or complications. 

How to Prevent Eye-Related Headaches

Headaches can be caused by a lot of factors, while you can’t eliminate all, you can make your eyes one less causal factor. 

• Remember to blink: because you're so concentrated, you subconsciously reduce how often you blink, but this dries your eyes out, making you prone to a headache. So make a conscious effort to blink next time you're engrossed in work.
• Take regular breaks: a technique you should adopt is the 20-20-20 rule. Every 20 minutes, look at something 20 metres away for 20 seconds.
• Maintain proper posture: whether you are scrolling on your phone or working on your computer, keep in mind to maintain a proper posture. 
• Optimise your workspace: you can also maintain proper posture by setting up your workstation comfortably so you don't have to strain your muscles while keeping your head down or slouched back while working.
• Good lighting: avoid working in the dark, adjust your screen lighting; not too bright, not too dark. Blue light-blocking glasses or screens also help.

Conclusion 

You might think ocular headaches are minor, but they are not. It's important to pay attention to them. They can be signs that there's a deeper issue with your eye health or that you just need to rest your eyes for a while.Detecting where and how it hurts gives you a head start on how to treat it. Following preventive measures like the 20-20-20 rule, good posture, good lighting, and regular eye checks also help.On a lighter note, the saying “the eyes are the gateway to the mind (head in this case)”  is true when it comes to explaining the link between the eyes and headache.

References

1. Friedman DI. Headache and the eye. Current Science Inc [Internet]. 2008 Aug [cited 2025 May 23];12(4):296–304. Available from: http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s11916-008-0050-1
2. Kaur K, Gurnani B, Nayak S, Deori N, Kaur S, Jethani J, et al. Digital eye strain- a comprehensive review. Ophthalmol Ther [Internet]. 2022 Oct [cited 2025 May 23];11(5):1655–80. Available from: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9434525/
3. Wajuihian SO. Exploring correlations between headaches and refractive errors in an optometry clinic sample. Br Ir Orthopt J [Internet]. 2024;20(1):1–15. Available from: http://dx.doi.org/10.22599/bioj.313
4.   Nguyen E, Inger H, Jordan C, Rogers D. Ocular causes for headache. Seminars in Pediatric Neurology [Internet]. 2021 Dec [cited 2025 May 22];40:100925. Available from: https://linkinghub.elsevier.com/retrieve/pii/S107190912100053X
5. Liu S, Dong H, Fang S, Zhang L. Risk of Dry Eye in Headache Patients: A Systematic Review and Meta-analysis. Ann Med [Internet]. [cited 2025 May 15];54(1):2876–85. Available from: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9586673/
6. Baksh BS, Garcia JC, Galor A. Exploring the link between dry eye and migraine: From eye to brain. Eye Brain [Internet]. 2021;13:41–57. Available from: http://dx.doi.org/10.2147/EB.S234073
7. Asseyer S, Hamblin J, Messina S, Mariano R, Siebert N, Everett R, et al. Prodromal headache in MOG-antibody positive optic neuritis. Multiple Sclerosis and Related Disorders [Internet]. 2020 May [cited 2025 May 22];40:101965. Available from: https://linkinghub.elsevier.com/retrieve/pii/S2211034820300419
8. Dongen RM van, Haan J. Symptoms related to the visual system in migraine [Internet]. F1000Research; 2019 [cited 2025 May 22]. Available from: https://f1000research.com/articles/8-1219
9. Boadi-Kusi SB, Adueming POW, Hammond FA, Antiri EO. Computer vision syndrome and its associated ergonomic factors among bank workers. International Journal of Occupational Safety and Ergonomics [Internet]. 2022 Apr 3 [cited 2025 May 22];28(2):1219–26. Available from: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/10803548.2021.1897260
10. Meyer KJ, Anderson MG. Genetic modifiers as relevant biological variables of eye disorders. Human Molecular Genetics [Internet]. 2017 Aug 1 [cited 2025 May 22];26(R1):R58–67. Available from: https://academic.oup.com/hmg/article/26/R1/R58/3803697

Disclaimer:
The information provided on this website is for general educational and informational purposes only. It is not intended to replace professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Always seek the advice of your physician or other qualified health provider with any questions you may have regarding a medical condition.

Published May 26, 2025