There are many types of eye injuries- some can be minor and not very threatening, like getting face-wash in your eye but others can be very threatening to your eyesight and could cause you to lose complete vision.
Injuries caused by chemical exposure or burns are generally caused by getting a bit of soap or sun-cream in your eye- these are usually not severely damaging as they are just irritants to our eyes. On the other hand acids and things like ammonia can cause severe and permanent damage if they come into contact with your eyes.
After using things like cleaning products, hair spray or other chemicals you need to watch out because we will often rub our eyes with our hand if we need to and by doing this the skin can be transferred from your hands to your eyes and just that can be damaging.
The cornea is seen as a transparent skin that covers our eyes and is very unique, a corneal abrasion is basically a scratch or mark on that special transparent layer/ skin. This can occur just by being “poked” in the eye by a finger or tree branch or anything in-between.
Similar to a corneal abrasion, you can get something called a traumatic iritis- this injury is associated with the same causes as above but usually a more blunt object is involved – like a fist or bat. Iritis just means that your iris is inflamed- the iris is the colour part of your eye and is a muscle that controls how much light enters the eye.
Another type of eye injury is an orbital blow-out fracture, or hyphemas- this happens when there is a great blow to your eye and surrounding area, so not just the eye. For example if you are punched in the face. Hyphemas occurs as a result of bleeding of the eye, the eye bleeds from the space between the cornea and iris.
Injuries like cuts to the eyelid and mucous membrane occur often from sharp objects; however they can also occur from a fall or a blunt flying object. If there are cuts on the cornea or sclera it is extremely serious and an eye specialist would need to be visited immediately.
Items that get “stuck” in your eye are known as foreign bodies, such as small pieces of metal, wood or plastic or basically any object that gets into the eye. If the object is in the cornea and has not penetrated the actual eye it is ok. However if the object is metal it can cause a rust stain in the eye and must be treated immediately.
These injuries are not all threatening to your sight and not all of them require treatment but some do and there are many other injuries and eye diseases such as cataracts that exist, so remember if anything ever happens there are many eye specialists all around the world.
This post was written by Nicola, she is an eye specialist and wanted to highlight some of the dangers to your eyes.
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