Explainer | Why a detached retina is ‘a hot emergency’, the risk of it leaving you blind in one eye and its possible causes, from myopia to riding a roller coaster
- The retina is a layer of sensory cells essential for clear vision. It can detach from the back of the eye for reasons including myopia, age and trauma
- Myopia levels are high among children in East Asia who lack time outdoors and stare at screens too much, and eye doctors are seeing more cases in young patients
My husband’s ophthalmologist described his situation as “a hot emergency”. We both looked at him blankly. So he said it again: A Hot Emergency.
He needed him in the operating theatre that very afternoon.
Having had surgery on his left eye just two months earlier, my husband had presented himself at the ophthalmology department for what was meant to be a routine post-op screening.
The appointment might have been delayed had he not begun to complain of floaters and flashes in the eye, “and a funny sort of veil”.
The hot emergency – 90 minutes on the operating table – was a detached retina.
The retina is a layer of sensory cells at the back of the eye essential for clear central vision and for detecting movement in dark environments. A retinal detachment occurs when this layer becomes separated from the back of the eye, explains Andy Meau, an optometrist and director at Central Eye Care in Hong Kong.