Orbits and Grave's Disease

One disease that I find interesting is grave's disease. I figured this was a wonderful oppurtunity to talk about graves when learning about the orbits. The orbits help diagnose graves disease by determining changes in the optic nerve and orbital shape. In graves disease the orbits can be decompressed, which requires surgery and problems with vision. Other symptoms include: decreased ocular motility, exposure keratitis, optic neuropathy, and poor cosmesis per emedicine.medscape.com. Graves disease goes way back and was orginally called Graves- Basedow disease. In 1835 they described graves disease as hyperthyroidism, goiter and exophthalmos per emedicine.com In graves disease the thyroid gland becomes enlarged and is called a goiter. Picture by: http://spinwarp.ucsd.edu/neuroweb/Text/orb-220.htm