Detached Retina - RECOGNIZE the Symptoms!

[Paperdoc]

I've just had surgery to re-attach a detached retina in one eye. When this disorder happens it is ESSENTIAL that it be treated quickly. What it really is: the retina in your eye is the layer of light sensors attached inside the back of your eyeball the sends signals to your brain so you can see. For various reasons that entire layer can start to "peel away" from the back of your eyeball. This can be repaired with eye surgery if done quickly, although there may be small disturbances in sight afterwards. BUT if the detachment is allowed to get worse before surgery, it can be so bad that it damages the centre of your retina and leaves that eye permanently blind!

How fast? Well, I think I left mine much too long because I did not recognize the symptoms. First of all, there is NO pain to warn you! What actually got my attention was that along one edge of my field of view in the left eye only (in my case, the lower right edge) I saw a blurry brown blob that obscured vision in that area. At first it looked to me like my cheek was swollen and I could just see it "out of the corner of my eye". And this was intermittent - often just not there at all. Then it got more like always there. Then the area got bigger, expanding towards the middle of the view in that eye. The expansion got me worried so I called for an appointment with my regular eye specialist (lucky I had one for other reasons!). This was LESS that 10 days from the first symptoms of brown blob. When I described the symptoms and their progression, the receptionist obviously recognized that and told me to come to the office immediately for examination, which I did. The doctor confirmed Retinal Detachment and said it needed surgical correction immediately, but I would have to travel to another city for the specialist who could to that job. Lucky for me my son was able to take a couple days off work on NO notice and drive me! We left at 5:00 that afternoon and drove to a hotel 8 hours away. Next morning I went to the office of the new specialist, and by that time my vision was much worse - almost all of the view was blobbed off and I could not read any eye chart! He confirmed the situation and arranged immediately for surgery that afternoon, worrying that damage to the centre of the retina might already have happened. From mid-morning Wednesday when I first called my eye doctor for an appointment to late afternoon Thursday the brown blob expanded from 1/4 of my field of view in that one eye to almost all of it, and we drove 450 miles to another specialist and hospital for immediate surgery that was finished by suppertime. We were able to drive home the next day. I am told the surgery went very well, but my vision in that eye will never be super-good like it was but WILL work well. The surgery is a bit complex and the recovery process takes 2 to 4 months to restore complete vision. During that time I will be basically one-eyed so I cannot drive a car. But the good news is that the surgery WAS done in time and vision WILL return so I can use BOTH eyes. By the way, because of details of the surgical procedure, you can NOT fly in any airplane after the surgery for several months! That is why we had to DRIVE to the specialist, so we could drive back home after.

So, I get THREE important lessons from this I pass on now.
1. Detached Retina is a serious problem that requires a complex surgical solution by a specialist that may not be really close by. And it is not rare.
2. The problem can go from beginning to VERY serious quite quickly, so it is important to have it examined by an eye doctor as soon as you experience symptoms. I don't want to cause panic calls to eye doctors, but I do want people to know what to do if symptoms occur.
3. What symptoms? MY first thing I recognized as suspicious was a blurry blob along one edge of my field of view in one eye, NOT always there. It really got me worried when that expanded, but that already was late! In retrospect, I think I ignored an earlier symptom that I saw at least a week before all that. In the dark as I was going to bed I would see SOMETIMES a brief flash of white light streak across my view when I blinked. I'm going to verify with my regular eye doctor next week that those light streaks were a first symptom of this problem.

Update: my regular ophthalmologist confirmed today that an early symptom of retinal detachment is seeing brief flashes of bright white streaks. He says also sudden appearance of "floaters" in one eye may be a symptom.

 

[stargazr]

My boss just had surgery for this a few weeks ago. He woke up one morning and couldn't see at all out of that eye. There may have been some bleeding. They told him the detached retina could be from blood thinners he takes.

I didn't realize that you could have this condition with less severe symptoms than lack of sight.

Apparently, they cut around the back of the eye with a laser to encourage the body to heal the area. They tried it with him at first in the doctor's office but it was unsuccessful because of the blood built up behind the eye. So he had to have it done later at the hospital.

 

[esquared]

I've just had surgery to re-attach a detached retina in one eye. When this disorder happens it is ESSENTIAL that it be treated quickly. What it really is: the retina in your eye is the layer of light sensors attached inside the back of your eyeball the sends signals to your brain so you can see. For various reasons that entire layer can start to "peel away" from the back of your eyeball. This can be repaired with eye surgery if done quickly, although there may be small disturbances in sight afterwards. BUT if the detachment is allowed to get worse before surgery, it can be so bad that it damages the centre of your retina and leave that eye permanently blind!

How fast? Well, I think I left mine much too long because I did not recognize the symptoms. First of all, there is NO pain to warn you! What actually got my attention was that along one edge of my field of view in the left eye only (in my case, the lower right edge) I saw a blurry brown blob that obscured vision in that area. At first it looked to me like my cheek was swollen and I could just see it "out of the corner of my eye". And this was intermittent - often just not there at all. Then it got more like always there. Then the area got bigger, expanding towards the middle of the view in that eye. The expansion got me worried so I called for an appointment with my regular eye specialist (lucky I had one for other reasons!). This was LESS that 10 days from the first symptoms of brown blob. When I described the symptoms and their progression, the receptionist obviously recognized that and told me to come to the office immediately for examination, which I did. The doctor confirmed Retinal Detachment and said it needed surgical correction immediately, but I would have to travel to another city for the specialist who could to that job. Lucky for me my son was able to take a couple days off work on NO notice and drive me! We left at 5:00 that afternoon and drove to a hotel 8 hours away. Next morning I went to the office of the new specialist, and by that time my vision was much worse - almost all of the view was blobbed off and I could not read any eye chart! He confirmed the situation and arranged immediately for surgery that afternoon, worrying that damage to the centre of the retina might already have happened. From mid-morning Wednesday when I first called my eye doctor for an appointment to late afternoon Thursday the brown blob expanded from 1/4 of my field of view in that one eye to almost all of it, and we drove 400 miles to another specialist and hospital for immediate surgery that was finished by suppertime. We were able to drive home the next day. I am told the surgery went very well, but my vision in that eye will never be super-good like it was but WILL work well. The surgery is a bit complex and the recovery process takes 2 to 4 months to restore complete vision. During that time I will be basically one-eyed so I cannot drive a car. But the good news is that the surgery WAS done in time and vision WILL return so I can use BOTH eyes. By the way, because of details of the surgical procedure, you can NOT fly in any airplane after the surgery for several months! That is why we had to DRIVE to the specialist, so we could drive back home after.

So, I get THREE important lessons from this I pass on now.
1. Detached Retina is a serious problem that requires a complex surgical solution by a specialist that may not be really close by. And it is not rare.
2. The problem can go from beginning to VERY serious quite quickly, so it is important to have it examined by an eye doctor as soon as you experience symptoms. I don't want to cause panic calls to eye doctors, but I do want people to know what to do if symptoms occur.
3. What symptoms? MY first thing I recognized as suspicious was a blurry blob along one edge of my field of view in one eye, NOT always there. It really got me worried when that expanded, but that already was late! But in retrospect, I think I ignored an earlier symptom that I saw at least a week before all that. In the dark as I was going to bed I would see SOMETIMES a brief flash of white light streak across my view when I blinked. I'm going to verify with my regular eye doctor next week that those light streaks were a first symptom of this problem.

Thanks for the PSA.

 

[Brainonska511]

Yes, get routine checkups and all sudden vision changes immediately looked at. The big problem for eyes is that many initial symptoms don't cause pain or are not noticeable by the patient.

My eye doc is always reminding me about the sudden vision change issue because of the possibility of a detached retina (like sudden, large increase in floaters, vision loss...).

Glad to hear your case seems to have worked out on the better side.

 

[Brainonska511]

There may have been some bleeding. They told him the detached retina could be from blood thinners he takes.

When I used to work on a cancer drug as part of my work, one of the warnings was about retinal detachment.

Always a good idea to just glance through the prescribing information that comes with every drug you get, to get an idea for any potential major side effects.

Edit: not to scare you away from something that can help you, but to just be aware.

 

[Red Squirrel]

That's scary stuff, heard about it before, good to know what the early symptoms are. The idea of vision loss either full or partial is one of my worse fears.

 

[balloonshark]

I always assumed you had to have some sort of trauma to get detached retinas. It's good to know that it can just happen out of the blue. The first I heard about detached retinas was when "Big Daddy" Don Garlits de-accelerated too fast and it happened to him and ended his racing career.

 

[Pohemi]

My left retina detached about 8 or 9 years back. 5 or 6 months ago, I had a retinal tear and major hemorrhage in my right eye. All of it caused by a lifetime of "brittle" type 1 beetus.

They attempted the surgery to repair my left retina, but it was delayed several months due to an incompetant Doctor and was not successful.

That's scary stuff, heard about it before, good to know what the early symptoms are. The idea of vision loss either full or partial is one of my worse fears.

It was one of mine too, TBH. From when I was 15yo on...I had hoped my kidneys or something else would kill me before my vision went. Not so lucky. I'm not completely blind yet, but it's already been a struggle to adjust.

 

[NuclearNed]

I had a vitreous detachment a few months ago. It has the same symptoms as a detached retina, so it scared me pretty badly.

 

[Pohemi]

With the tear and hemorrhage in my right retina more recently, I simply woke with my vision blurred and a big spaghetti nest web of floater lines covering the right half of my right field of vision. The floaters have not cleared like floaters typically did in the past (meaning it's still continually bleeding along those lines).

When my left retina detached years back, there was no blurriness (immediately) and no large floaters. Everything in my left field of vision just suddenly went red. The blurriness didn't come until later, after the surgery to try to repair it.

During the surgery, they drain all of the vitreous and blood from the interior eye, and inject a bubble of Nitrogen gas. After the surgery, you need to keep your head down with your face parallel to the ground, as close to 24/7 as possible for several weeks. They gave me a special chair to sit in with a pad to lay your face on. Fun times. The Nitrogen pins the Retina to the back of the eye to allow it to re-fuse.

 

[Charmonium]

I know that a lot our members here, myself included, are getting up in years and the unfortunate consequence of that is more and unpredictable maladies.

So @Pohemi, @Paperdoc and others - thank you for bringing this to our attention.

Personally, I have been grossly remiss in having my annual eye exam and I intend to remedy that mistake today.

 

[herm0016]

thanks for the PSA.

We were on a Disney cruise wedding for friends of ours about 10 years ago and the mother of the bride, the morning of the wedding on the Disney whatever island had a part of her retina detach. she got a helo ride to Nassau or somewhere with an airport and a jet back to Florida that night to have surgery. They had to rent a car to drive back to ohio after.

 

[Shmee]

My cat Mango, who is going on 16, recently started going blind, it took us a while to notice though. When we suspected he was, we took him to the vet, and turned out he was blind and one of the retinas was detached. This was likely due to high blood pressure, and the start of kidney disease. Now he is on a partial kidney food diet, and takes blood pressure meds. The good news is he is getting better, seems to be happier, and we verified he can see again! Before we used a laser pointer, and he couldn't see it. Now he can track it just fine (though he doesn't chase it) and it does look like he can see much better, and we notice he can move around and jump better.

 

[Paperdoc]

herm0016's post above sounds like a typical case - sudden onset with no warning or pain. She was lucky to have it recognized and handled correctly immediately. As pointed out above, transport AFTER surgery had to be on the ground.

Shmee, I never though about pets, but your story makes a lot of sense.

 

[nakedfrog]

With the tear and hemorrhage in my right retina more recently, I simply woke with my vision blurred and a big spaghetti nest web of floater lines covering the right half of my right field of vision. The floaters have not cleared like floaters typically did in the past (meaning it's still continually bleeding along those lines).

When my left retina detached years back, there was no blurriness (immediately) and no large floaters. Everything in my left field of vision just suddenly went red. The blurriness didn't come until later, after the surgery to try to repair it.

During the surgery, they drain all of the vitreous and blood from the interior eye, and inject a bubble of Nitrogen gas. After the surgery, you need to keep your head down with your face parallel to the ground, as close to 24/7 as possible for several weeks. They gave me a special chair to sit in with a pad to lay your face on. Fun times. The Nitrogen pins the Retina to the back of the eye to allow it to re-fuse.

That's fascinating and sounds terrible.

 

[Paperdoc]

In case you missed it, I added the following note about early symptoms to my original post above:

Update: my regular ophthalmologist confirmed today that an early symptom of retinal detachment is seeing brief flashes of bright white streaks. He says also sudden appearance of "floaters" in one eye may be a symptom.

Now an added note on incidence. Internet searches I did show detached retinas occur at a rate of perhaps 10 per 100,000 people per year, but more recent studies show that rate to be higher. A study from 2023 based on data from people with commercial health insurance in the USA showed the incidence to be 22.4 cases per 100,000 person-years for average people. It is higher among men than in women, higher in people over 60 and higher for people with longstanding myopia (short-sightedness). Whether this incidence data is impacted by the fact that the population sampled all HAD health insurance and could get to good medical care quickly is for speculation.

My own ophthalmologist is part of a trio of such specialists in a large clinic in my city. It is a smaller city. If we combine the city's population with that of smaller communities within about 250 miles, that comes to perhaps 135,000. He reports they see from 10 to 20 cases of detached retina per year. There may be one additional ophthalmologist here operating his own clinic. So a ROUGH estimate in this region using a much smaller sample size is 10 to 20 cases per 100,000 person-years, similar to the study I noted above. I would not call that a rare disorder, but certainly it is not common. Maybe that is my excuse for not recognizing the symptoms early enough.The good news 6 days after surgery is that it appears to have been very successful and my recovery is proceeding well. Sight in that eye is very poorly focused now as expected this early. It may be several months before recovery is complete and stable enough to assess the extent of permanent impact.