Emergency Eye Care for Patients
Knowing what to do if you experience an eye injury or sudden changes to your vision can be the difference between quickly treating your problem and lasting eye damage. Although not every minor eye injury requires immediate treatment, your eyes are delicate enough that it is generally better to err on the side of caution. Here is an overview of several common scenarios that require emergency eye care.
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What Is Emergency Eye Care?
Injuries that might be considered minor if they occurred anywhere else are often much more severe because your eyes are so fragile and prone to lasting damage, which means that nearly any eye injury or sudden vision problem should be looked at by a professional as soon as possible. Although it is generally acceptable to visit a regular emergency room if there are no other options, an optometrist can typically provide more specialized care for these situations.
Same-Day Urgent Eye Care for Patients
At Good iSight, knowing what to do as soon as you experience an eye emergency can be challenging. Our existing patients have access to a variety of same-day emergency services that can significantly reduce the likelihood of lasting eye damage, and being able to visit your regular optometrist in an emergency can give you the peace of mind of having someone you know and trust handle more significant eye concerns.
What Is an Eye Emergency?
Many eye injuries and other problems are considered emergencies because of the delicate nature of your eyes, and not treating these injuries can result in permanent vision loss. Some common eye emergencies include:
- Eye injuries, such as scratches, blows to the eye, foreign objects in the eye, or chemical or radiation burns
- Red eyes (not always an emergency, but can be a sign of an infection that needs immediate treatment)
- Flashes in vision (may be caused by friction on your retina)
- Sudden loss of vision (may be caused by blockage of blood flow to the retina, retinal detachment, or other eye injuries)
What Not to Do During an Eye Emergency
Heading to your optometrist as soon as you experience an eye emergency is a must. Still, knowing how to handle the situation until you can get there to avoid further damaging your eye is useful. Pressing or rubbing your eye can be more harmful than you might expect, as can attempting to remove a foreign object from your eye with your finger, tweezers, or anything else. Rinsing your eye with water may be necessary in some situations, but it is best to avoid attempting to solve the problem yourself.
What Is Not an Eye Emergency?
Knowing what to do when experiencing an eye emergency is important, but so is being able to discern whether your situation is actually an emergency. Eye allergies, minor itching or aching, dust or sand that you can get out of your eye using tears or water and blurry vision not accompanied by other symptoms are generally not emergencies. Some of these situations may be urgent enough to see an optometrist within a day or two, especially if they do not resolve independently.
Count on Good iSight for All Your Eye Care Needs
At Good iSight, we know that handling an eye emergency can be stressful. Our same-day emergency eye care services make it easier for patients in the Parker, CO, area to get the care they need as soon as an urgent situation occurs, which can significantly reduce the likelihood of experiencing lasting eye damage.