A broken blood vessel in your eye is almost always a subconjunctival hemorrhage, a harmless burst of a tiny blood vessel in the clear membrane covering the white of your eye. It looks alarming (a bright red patch that can spread across the white), but it causes no pain, no vision changes, and no lasting damage. The blood is trapped between two thin layers of tissue on the surface of the eye, much like a bruise under the skin.
Physical Strain Is the Most Common Trigger
The small blood vessels on the surface of your eye are fragile, and any sudden spike in pressure can rupture one. The most common physical triggers include:
- Coughing or sneezing, especially violent or repeated bouts
- Straining, such as heavy lifting, bearing down during a bowel movement, or the pushing phase of childbirth
- Vomiting
- Rubbing your eye vigorously
- Minor trauma, like bumping or poking the eye
All of these actions briefly raise pressure in the veins of the head and face, which is enough to pop a delicate capillary. Many people notice the red spot the morning after a hard coughing spell or a strenuous workout and have no idea what caused it because the rupture itself is painless.
Contact Lenses and Eye Rubbing
If you wear contact lenses, you’re at higher risk simply because you touch your eyes more often. Putting lenses in and taking them out means placing routine pressure on the surface of the eyeball. Over time, that repeated contact can weaken the tiny vessels in the conjunctiva and make a rupture more likely. Dry or irritated eyes from lens wear can also tempt you to rub harder, compounding the risk.
Medications That Increase Bleeding
Blood-thinning medications are a well-documented risk factor. Warfarin, the most commonly prescribed outpatient blood thinner in North America, is associated with spontaneous eye hemorrhages in roughly 0.35 to 1.56 percent of users. Aspirin, even at a low daily dose, also raises the likelihood. The medications don’t cause the vessel to break, but they make it harder for blood to clot once a small rupture occurs, which means the bleeding spreads wider and takes longer to clear.
Over-the-counter supplements with blood-thinning properties, such as fish oil and ginkgo biloba, can have a similar effect. If you take any of these and notice broken blood vessels in your eye more than once, it’s worth mentioning to the prescriber who manages your medication.
Underlying Health Conditions
Several systemic conditions make the blood vessels in your eye more vulnerable to rupture. High blood pressure, high cholesterol, and diabetes are all recognized risk factors. These conditions damage blood vessel walls throughout the body over time, including the very small, delicate vessels on the eye’s surface. A single episode doesn’t mean you have any of these problems, but recurrent hemorrhages, especially with no clear physical trigger, can be a signal that something else is going on.
Bleeding disorders, whether inherited or acquired, are a less common but more serious cause. If you notice that broken eye vessels keep happening alongside easy bruising on your skin, bleeding gums, or a family history of clotting problems, those patterns together may point toward a blood clotting issue that needs laboratory evaluation.
Age Is a Factor
Broken eye vessels become more common as you get older. The walls of small blood vessels lose elasticity with age, and the conjunctiva itself thins, offering less structural support. Combined with the fact that older adults are more likely to take blood thinners or have high blood pressure, a subconjunctival hemorrhage after age 50 or 60 is an especially routine occurrence.
How It Heals
A broken blood vessel in the eye heals on its own, typically within one to three weeks. The bright red patch gradually shifts to orange, then yellow, then fades entirely, following the same color progression as a bruise on your skin. No drops, compresses, or treatments speed this up. Artificial tears can help if the area feels mildly scratchy, but the hemorrhage itself doesn’t need treatment.
The blood won’t spread behind the eye or affect your vision. It stays trapped in the surface layer and is slowly reabsorbed by your body.
Signs That Need Attention
A straightforward broken blood vessel does not cause pain, light sensitivity, vision loss, or discharge. Those are the key distinguishing features. If you experience any of those symptoms alongside the red patch, something more serious may be involved, such as an injury to the deeper structures of the eye.
Recurrent episodes are also worth investigating. A single hemorrhage with an obvious trigger (a bad cold, a heavy deadlift) is nothing to worry about. But if it keeps happening, or if you’re also bruising easily in other parts of your body, further evaluation can help rule out blood pressure problems, clotting disorders, or issues with your current medications.