SPORTS-RELATED EYE INJURIES

According to a few different sources, each year the emergency room sees somewhere between 30,000 and 45,000 sports-related eye injuries! And those are just the ones that go to the emergency room! So many kiddos, adults and professional athletes are competing in different sports that can put those peepers at risk. Basketball has been reported as the sport that accounts for the highest number of eye related injuries, followed by baseball and softball. Being that April is Sports Eye Safety Month, we thought we’d focus on some of the most common sports-related injuries.

Corneal Abrasion

A scratch on the front surface of the eye, or corneal abrasion, is the most common injury seen. Think of a poke to the eye as you’re both going for the ball or blocking an opponent from getting the basketball. Or maybe you get dust kicked up as you’re sliding into home plate and as you go to rub it out, you actually cause a little cut on the front of the eye as it moves back and forth under your eyelid. Easy to do! It also can seem very painful as the cornea has no blood vessels, just lots and lots of nerves that cause any little cut or scratch to feel immense. In this incident, our doctors can ensure no other damage occurred, but just like an open cut on your leg, we’ll need to put antibiotics on it as a precaution against infection while it is healing. Good news! The cornea is the fastest tissue in the body to heal! You’ll be ready to get back on the court or field in no time.

Blunt Trauma

Head injuries are also extremely common in sports, especially those with more contact, like soccer and football. This type of impact can cause retinal detachments, which can lead to loss of vision. We can also see bruising on the retina as well as on the eyelid, like a black eye. Some of this can certainly be more serious and should certainly be evaluated if any head trauma occurs. The most common blunt trauma, especially in boxing or hockey, is an orbital fracture or blowout fracture. This can also occur when balls or equipment hit directly at the eye. It can cause pain, double vision, bruising and blurriness when the bone (most often below the eye) is damaged and it’s surrounding tissue can be damaged as well. The nerves can be trapped within this broken bone to cause double vision or restriction of the eye movements, which may require surgery.

Penetrating Injuries

Of course, blunt head trauma can be more serious and more common, but penetrating injuries, like glasses break and cut the eyelid or other sharp debris poking the eye or eyelid. The most common penetrating injury, we’ve already discussed above, is a corneal abrasion. Other injuries of this nature may depend on the severity of the object and how much penetration to the eye or eyelid was caused as to determine how urgently to be evaluated.

Bleeding

In sports, but also just in everyday life, we can have a subconjunctival hemorrhage, or popped blood vessel. In everyday life, you can cough to hard, sneeze, or lift something excessive, and blood vessels can burst. In sports, it can be the same causes or a poke from a finger for example, that can cause the white part of the eye to bleed. With this condition, it will go away on it’s own, but can take anywhere from 7-21 days to do so. The blood will just dissipate on it’s own and gravity will often take over in the healing process as the blood will pool in lower parts of the eye. The best thing to do in this scenario is to keep the eye well lubricated with artificial tears. Think of your skin cracking when it is dry… we need to keep the eye comfortable and not dry to avoid any re-bleeding during the healing. But unfortunately, nothing more to do than that. This will often look way worse than it is or than it feels.

There are several other conditions that can occur to the eye from sports, but these are the most common we see among our patients. When in doubt, always get checked out by an optometrist or ophthalmologist whenever any eye injury occurs to ensure the correct course of action is taken for full recovery. You only have two eyes, so be sure no matter what sports you enjoy, to protect those peepers!