Injuries to the Eye

A graze or scratch on the eye due to a contact lens or grit can cause injuries to the eyes. The injuries can damage the cornea.

If the injury does not penetrate the tissue under the epithelium, it is a superficial injury.

The healing of the injury may take twenty four to seventy two hours. These superficial injuries can be treated using oral analgesics to get pain relief and eye drops for the prevention of infection.

Symptoms

If a person has a damaged cornea, he will experience discomfort in the eyes or he will fell the presence of something inside his eyes. In certain cases, the eye will be ‘weeping’ continuously.

The other symptoms associated with eye injury are;

• pain while the injured eye is being moved
• blurring of the vision
• losing sharpness of the vision as well as
• light sensitivity or photophobia.

Usually the eye injuries which are superficial are minor. But the chances of the area of the eye where the injury is there tend to appear worse than the original state.

Causes

In most of the cases, injuries to the eye occur as a result of the abrasions or scratches that happen to the cornea, which is the eye’s outer layer.

Foreign substances

If the eye comes into contact with grit or a scratch occurs accidentally to the eye due to plant, paper or finger nails, it can result in superficial injuries to the eye.

In certain cases, injuries to the eye may occur when the eye comes into contact with an object of high speed like stones thrown by lawn movers or the dust particles that form due to grinding, hammering or chiselling.

Contact lenses

The contact lenses can cause eye injuries in cases where

the contact lens does not fit the person in a proper manner
the contact lens is being worn for a long time
the contact lens is used while sleeping also.

The trapping up of any foreign body like dirt and dust in the contact lens can result in eye injuries.

Treatment

A ophthalmologist must be visited if

• the cause of injury is a foreign body
• the cause of injury is the getting in of some chemicals from the eye.
• the foreign body cannot be removed by self
• the person experiences sever pain in his eyes
• if the vision of the person is affected
• the retina of the eye is damaged
• the cut is on the orbit and is very deep
• the person suffers from eye injuries in a recurring fashion.

The following steps are followed for treatment of an eye injury:

The foreign body that has caused the injury is removed for the eyes by administering anaesthetic eye drops to avoid pain while removing the foreign body.
The pain in the eye is treated using an analgesic like paracetamol.
To prevent the eye infection, the person will be advised to use ointments and eye drops that has an antibiotic called chloramphenicol. The eye drops must be used four times in a day and the ointment must be applied for seven days in the night before sleeping.