Retinal Disorder Treatment
Retinal diseases are those that affect your retina, or the back layer of your eye. Light goes into your eye through your cornea and through the opening at the center of your iris called the pupil. Your lens focuses the light onto your retina. Your retina is the part of your eye that's responsible for converting light into electrical signals. Then, your optic nerve sends these signals to your brain, which turns the signals into images.A retinal disease can affect any part of your retina, including your macula, the center part of your retina that lets you see details. You can inherit some of these conditions. Many retinal diseases cause symptoms that affect your vision. It’s important to find and treat diseases of the retina. Many of them can cause blindness or low vision if they aren't treated.
How common are retinal diseases?
There are about 11.8 million people in the U.S. with eye diseases, including glaucoma, diabetes-related retinopathy and photoreceptor degeneration, which refers to a loss of rods and cones.
What are the symptoms of retinal diseases?
Symptoms of retinal diseases include:- Eye floaters and flashes- Blurred or altered vision- Blind spots in your central or peripheral vision (vision to the sides of your central vision)- Distortions in your vision (for example, straight lines appear crooked)- Sudden loss of vision- Difficulty seeing at night or adjusting when the light changes
What causes retinal diseases?
There's not just one cause for retinal diseases.- You can inherit some conditions, like Usher syndrome, Stargardt disease and retinitis pigmentosa.- Other types of retinal damage (retinopathy) can happen along with other conditions. Diabetes and high blood pressure can damage blood vessels, which then causes damage to your retina. Inflammatory conditions can also cause damage.- Eye injuries can damage your retina and the macula. Macular pucker sometimes happens after eye surgery.- Some types of retinal damage, like cytomegalovirus retinitis, occur after an infection. The retinal disease itself isn't infectious, though.
What are the risk factors for retinal diseases?
Some things can raise the risk of developing retinal diseases. They may include:- Getting older- Smoking- Having obesity or overweight- Diabetes, hypertension or other conditions- Previous retinal tears or detachments- Having had previous eye injuries or surgeries- Family history of retinal diseases- Severe myopia (being very nearsighted)
How are retinal diseases treated?
Treatment depends on the type of retinal disease you have. Depending on the condition, treatment can stop the disease or slow down how quickly it gets worse. Therapy options include surgical procedures, laser treatments and injections of medicines into or around your eyes.- Vitrectomy is a surgical procedure to treat the following types of retinal disease: Retinal detachments / Macular pucker (epiretinal membrane) / Macular hole / Eye injuries, including foreign objects in your eye / Eye infections- Injections of medicine into the vitreous treat the following retinal conditions: Wet age-related macular degeneration (wet AMD) / Advanced diabetic retinopathy / Macular edema from various causes / Eye infections / Inflammatory eye diseases- Lasers treat: Blood vessels that have grown where they shouldn't be / Retinal tears / Central serous retinopathy / Macular edema
How long does it take to recover from treatment for retinal diseases?
Recovery times depend on the type of treatment you have and the retinal disease you have. For instance, if you have a gas bubble in your eye, it may take several weeks for the bubble to go away. You may be off work for two to four weeks. You also can't fly or inhale nitrous oxide for dental procedures with a gas bubble (but this is only temporary).If you have injections into your eye, your provider might tell you to rest your eyes, use artificial tears and avoid rubbing your eyes, but you won't really have a “recovery time.”