A busted blood vessel in your eye, known medically as a subconjunctival hemorrhage, happens when a tiny blood vessel breaks just beneath the clear surface of your eye and leaks blood into the white area. It looks alarming, often showing up as a bright red patch on the white of your eye, but it’s almost always harmless and heals on its own within one to two weeks. The causes range from something as simple as a hard sneeze to underlying health conditions that weaken blood vessels over time.
Straining and Sudden Pressure
The most common trigger is any action that suddenly spikes pressure in your veins. When you forcefully exhale against a closed airway (something your body does naturally during certain activities), the pressure in your blood vessels surges. That spike can be enough to pop a fragile vessel on the surface of your eye.
Everyday activities that create this kind of pressure include:
- Coughing or sneezing hard, especially during a cold or allergy flare
- Vomiting
- Straining on the toilet from constipation
- Heavy lifting or intense exercise, including weight training and aerobic workouts
- Blowing into a musical instrument
- Childbirth, particularly during the pushing stage of labor
If you frequently lift heavy weights, taking multiple breaths during each rep instead of holding your breath can reduce the pressure buildup that leads to burst vessels.
Eye Rubbing and Contact Lenses
Minor physical trauma to the eye is another frequent cause. Rubbing your eyes vigorously, even when they’re just itchy or tired, can damage the delicate conjunctival vessels. A foreign body like a speck of dust or an eyelash can do the same if you rub to dislodge it.
Contact lenses deserve special attention. Tears in the conjunctiva often happen during improper lens insertion or removal, and long fingernails or lens-handling tools make these small injuries more likely. Worn-out disposable lenses, hard lenses with surface defects, and lenses stored in poor conditions can also scratch the surface of the eye. Contact lens-related hemorrhages tend to show up on the side of the eye closer to the temple, and they’re more common in younger people whose connective tissue is otherwise strong enough to keep the bleeding contained to a small area.
High Blood Pressure and Diabetes
Sometimes a burst vessel points to something going on beneath the surface. High blood pressure and diabetes both increase vascular fragility, meaning the walls of your small blood vessels become weaker and more prone to breaking. If you’re getting burst vessels in your eye repeatedly and you haven’t been sneezing or straining, uncontrolled blood pressure or blood sugar could be a factor worth investigating.
Blood disorders that affect how your blood clots can also cause increased fragility in these tiny vessels, leading to spontaneous hemorrhages without any obvious trigger.
Blood Thinners and Medications
Medications that reduce your blood’s ability to clot raise the risk of bleeding anywhere in the body, including the eye. Prescription blood thinners are the most significant culprits. A large international database tracking adverse drug reactions documented hundreds of cases of eye bleeding linked to both older and newer anticoagulant medications. These drugs work by inhibiting specific clotting factors, which is their intended purpose for preventing strokes and blood clots, but the trade-off is a higher chance of bleeding events.
Over-the-counter pain relievers that thin the blood, like aspirin and ibuprofen, can have a similar effect on a smaller scale. If you’re taking any blood-thinning medication and notice frequent eye hemorrhages, it’s worth mentioning to whoever prescribes it.
What the Healing Process Looks Like
Most burst vessels resolve on their own within 7 to 14 days, though larger hemorrhages can take up to three weeks to fully clear. The color changes are predictable: the patch starts bright red, darkens over a few days, then shifts to a yellow-green hue as your body breaks down the trapped blood. That yellowish phase can look strange, but it’s actually a sign of normal healing, not a new problem.
There’s no way to speed up the process. If the eye feels scratchy or irritated, artificial tears (available over the counter) can help soothe that sensation. Avoid rubbing the eye while it heals.
When It’s Not Just a Burst Vessel
A standard burst vessel sits on the white of the eye, causes no pain, and doesn’t affect your vision. If your experience doesn’t match that description, something else may be going on.
Bleeding that appears in front of the colored part of your eye (the iris) rather than on the white is a different condition called a hyphema. Unlike a simple burst vessel, a hyphema causes pain and typically results from a direct blow to the eye. It requires prompt medical attention. Similarly, if a red eye comes with vision changes, significant pain, or sensitivity to light, the cause is likely something other than a broken surface vessel.
A single burst vessel with an obvious trigger (you sneezed, you rubbed your eye, you were deadlifting) is rarely a concern. Recurrent episodes without a clear cause are a different story. Repeated hemorrhages can signal an underlying clotting disorder, uncontrolled blood pressure, or a medication side effect that needs attention. In those cases, blood work to check clotting function and a blood pressure reading can help identify what’s driving the pattern.