A feeling of pressure behind your eyes doesn’t always stem from a problem inside your eyes. It usually starts in another part of your head. Though eye conditions can cause eye pain and vision problems, they rarely cause pressure. Even glaucoma, which is caused by a buildup of pressure inside the eye, doesn’t cause a feeling of pressure.
Eye conditions like pink eye or allergiescan cause eye pain, but not pressure. Pain generally feels like a stabbing, burning, or stinging sensation. Pressure behind the eyes feels like fullness or a stretching sensation inside the eye.
Keep reading to learn more about pressure behind the eye and its possible causes and treatments.

A few conditions can cause pressure behind the eye, including:
  • sinus problems
  • headaches
  • Graves’ disease
  • damage to the optic nerve
  • tooth pain

Sinusitis

Sinusitis, or a sinus infection, happens when bacteria or viruses get into the space behind your nose, eyes, and cheeks. These germs cause your sinuses to swell up and your nose to fill with mucus. With a sinus infection, you’ll feel pressure in the upper part of your face, including behind your eyes.
Additional symptoms of sinusitis may include:

Headaches

Two types of headaches, tension and cluster headaches, can cause a feeling of pressure behind the eyes.
Tension headaches are the most common type of headache, affecting nearly 80 percent of people.
Cluster headaches are an extremely painful type of headache that comes and goes. You might get cluster headaches for a few days or weeks, and then not have any headaches for many months or years.
In addition to pressure behind the eye, symptoms of a headache may include:
  • pain in your head that feels tight, aching, or intense
  • soreness in your neck and shoulder muscles
  • red, teary eyes
  • redness or sweating of your face
  • swelling on one side of your face
  • drooping eyelid

Graves’ disease

Graves’ disease is an autoimmune disease that causes the immune system to mistakenly attack the thyroid gland. This makes the gland release too much of its hormone. Graves’ disease affects the eye muscles, causing the eyes to bulge. Many people with this disease also have a feeling of pressure behind their eyes, which gets worse when they move their eyes. Additional symptoms may include:

Optic neuritis

Autoimmune diseases like multiple sclerosis (MS) or lupus can cause swelling, or inflammation, behind the eye. This swelling can damage the optic nerve, which transmits visual information from your eyes to your brain. Optic neuritis can cause pain that might feel like pressure or an ache behind your eye. You may also experience: