Symptoms and Treatment

Symptoms include:

Visual loss

• Bleeding on the surface or inside the eye
• Tears in the outer ocular walls
• A foreign body inside the eye
  

The evaluation of sports-related eye injuries is the same as for other types of eye trauma. More emergent injuries, such as head trauma with loss of consciousness, are always treated first.

Treatment
Prompt first aid after eye injury. The recommended first aid involves placing a protective cover over the eye to prevent further damage. (If no shield is available, tape the bottom of a paper cup over the eye). Seek emergency care as soon as possible.

What are high-risk sports to get an eye injury from?

Did you know that for all age groups, that for all age groups, sports-related eye injuries occur most often when playing baseball, basketball, and any type of sport that involves a racket.

Also, boxing and full contact martial arts have a extremely high risk of a serious eye injury, and may even cause blinding eye injuries. There is no good way to protect your eye in boxing. However, wearing thumbless gloves may reduce the number of boxing eye injuries.

In baseball, ice hockey, and men's lacrosse, a helmet with a polycarbonate face mask (polycarbonate is shatter-proof) should be worn at all times.

Protective eye-wear with polycarbonate lenses should be worn for basketball, sports that involve racket, soccer, and field hockey.

Question and Answer with an Opthamologist

Dr. S. Anandarajan

Q. What can you do to treat an eye injury immediately?

A. Never ignore an eye injury because it can be spotted with naked eye and should be seen by an eye care person.

Q. What are the most common eye injuries you can sustain from playing sports?

A. The common type of eye injuries are:

Abrasions in the cornea, and bleeding in the conjuncture.

Q. Why do you sometimes use cold compressions to treat an eye injury?

A. Cold compressions are used to stop or reduce outside bleeding.

Q. Why do you sometimes use hot compressions to treat an eye injury?

A. Hot compressions are normally used to reduce collection of blood in the injured area.

Q. Is it safe to play sports if you have an eye disease?

A. It is safer to avoid sports if you have an eye disease.

Q. If you get an eye injury from playing sports and you already have an eye disease can the injury cause blindness?

A. You do not get blindness in outside injuries, but you can get blindness in diseases of the inner eyeball.

Parts of the eye

The most common part of the eye that you can injure is the cornea, the iris, the anterior chamber, and the retina.

Recent football eye injuries: Nnamdi Asomugha

The Raiders star cornerback,Nnamdi Asomugha, sustained an eye injury when getting poked in the eye last week. He had to leave the game against the Philadelphia Eagles last week and according to sources he had eye vision problems. He should be ready for week 7.

April is sports eye injuries month

 Did you know that every 13 minutes, an emergency room in a hospital treats a sports related eye injury? Or that almost half of he eye injuries that  sports related occur to kids 14 years of age and younger? Eyes and Sports has dedicated the month of April to raise awareness and prevention for eye injuries to related to sports, and encourage people to try and prevent eye injuries. 

How to Prevent Eye Injuries in Sports

Protective eye gear, can help reduce sports related eye injuries. These include,
a. sports eye guards or
b. polycarbonate shield attached to a face guard.

Wearing these items can prevent you from many eye injuries. Some of injuries include,
a. scratches on the cornea
b. inflames iris
c. blood spilling into the eye's anterior chamber
d. swollen retina and
e. traumatic cataract