Ocular Trauma

In a year when Americans have been isolated, many may feel the urge to celebrate a new year, even over the internet on video chatting platforms, but concern for cork-related ocular trauma is as great as ever.

The threat of permanent ocular damage can take many forms as children delve into their new gifts in the midst of the holiday season.

A 78-year-old woman presented to the Lahey Hospital Cornea Service for evaluation and management of new conjunctival pigmentation of the left eye.

Fireworks are responsible for more than 9,000 injuries every year, and most of those injuries happen in the early summer months, according to Anna P. Murchison, MD, MPH, director, Wills Eye Emergency Department at Jefferson.

Rubber bullets and tear gas may sound innocuous and offer a false sense of security. In reality, these nonlethal weapons can cause permanent eye damage, eye injury, discomfort, pain, loss of vision and blindness.

Thousands of Americans have taken to the streets to protest following the killing of George Floyd. The American Academy of Ophthalmology released a statement condemning the use of rubber bullets as a means of crowd dispersion.

Reports of police using tear gas and rubber bullets to disperse protesters are becoming more commonplace throughout the country after the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis.

All ophthalmologists have seen a hyphema: blood in the anterior chamber, often after significant ocular trauma. In many cases, this blood is just a small amount, and it resolves over the course of days to weeks as aqueous in the anterior chamber turns over. In some situations, however, the hyphema can be so severe that it nearly completely fills the anterior chamber and creates a large clot that does not clear without surgical intervention.