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FrozenGate by Avery

Help plz, laser in eye

WizardG said:
Hope we hear from robhartle1995 soon with an update. And hopefully there will be no permanent damage. I'm curious as to the details of this incident.
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Yea, I'm interested as to how this incident occurred, but more worried of the result of the incident:( These kinds of threads(especially xoul's) remind me how really important goggles are.
 





Stupid Ebay-rules!!

If the allow lasers >1mW (in many Europe party for example), buyers would care a lot more, cause the Chinese would list them as 10000mW lasers or similar "to impress" the potential buyer.
When I got my first 1mW laser back in 2009, I only knew about the blinking reflex for lasers >5mW. I played around with it as I thought it´s totally safe.
Now I know that the laser had at least 30mW.


Hope you get better soon robhartle1995!!
 
I used "Powerful Green Laser Pointer Pen Beam Light 1mW Professional Lazer High Power" from the OP as my search term on feebay and I actually have two pointers that appear identical to what came up. One meters at 55mW (38mW of green, the rest IR). The headline says 1mW but lower down in the spec's section of the post it says the laser is class III. :thinking:
 
Yeah the sellers have no idea what they're selling and they want to avoid customs so that info is kinda all messed up
 
I recommend going to the eye doctor IMMEDIATELY, especially when it comes to getting pounded in the eyes with shorter wavelength laser light (532nm green, down to 255nm UV-C), the higher energy lights actually exaggerate the aftereffects of damages, while red and IR laser only cause thermal damage.

Also, on the other hands, PLEASE, for the sake of the little piddy turtle, test your goggle before you put it on your face! It's actually worse to be wearing sh*tty goggles than not to wear them at all. If eye-melting green light have turned into blue-greenish or green dim light (about 100 uW or lower), wear it, but if brightness after passing through the goggle is of no difference, toss it... And, I MUST EMPHASIZE that if your laser is 100mW or stronger, mind your environment, as reflection can be painful (Can anyone stand still without twitching in the front of a firing camera strobe?), not only that, fire hazards can happen.
 
Disclaimer- anything said here by myself is not intended to be taken as medical advice and/or treatment and does not constitute a traditional doctor/patient relationship. It is for educational and entertainment purposes only. You should always seek the attention of your own personal physician for medical services.

Hate that I have to do that.....

I should also state that I am not an ophthalmologist but I do have specific knowledge of this area and have access to the latest publications.

There is a few decent publicly available articles available on the web regarding retinal and general laser eye injuries, you can search for "accidental retina laser injury" or similar and come up with quite a few good reads.

In general, most serious laser injuries do not respond very favorably to any specific treatments. That means "wear your eye protection!" Because not only is prevention the best treatment, it is really the only treatment. There are different grading scales of injury that range from essentially a "stunned" retina all the way to full out necrosis and coagulation of the back of the eyeball. What makes eyes and lasers like matches and gasoline is the retina is a very sensitive and fragile organ that exposes itself to the outside world through a magnifying lens. Everything you are looking at right now, your entire visual field, is focused on an area in the order of a few millimeters. The most sensitive and densely packed area that gives you your precision of acuity is only a small fraction of this area near the middle of the focused light coming onto the retina. So, most of what allows you to see precisely and do things like read and recognize images is all in the area of a few square millimeters. Next, it has this big thing in front of it called a lens, a big magnifying lens. Add this with collimated light between 400 and 1400nm with measurable power and you have the perfect makings for a disastrous outcome. The laser, already highly concentrated, is focused even more onto a very small and important area that lacks the ability to regenerate itself like some other tissues and organs do.

Early studies of laser injury to the retina proved it only took about 7 to 10 mW to cause measurable damage to the Rhesus monkey's retina. Although there is some dependence on wavelength, in general it doesn't take but three to four times this to cause irreparable injury in some. There are many factors that play into how much power causes how much damage to a certain individual including lens age and clarity, astigmatism, myopia, and length of exposure. It is pretty intuitive that the lower the power the more time of exposure is required to cause retinal injury. Put all this aside and just realize it doesn't take much, especially with the power most of us tend to play with around here. When you're talking about watts your blink protective response is useless to prevent damage. You can't blink fast enough at this level of power, all the damage is done before the first neuron in the reflex pathway releases it's neurotransmitters into the next synapse. Forget the next few milliseconds it requires to activate the muscle and close the lid, the retina is already fried.

Painful? Sorry Charlie. Rarely are laser injuries gauged by perceived pain, they are generally painless with a few exceptions. Your now just blind in your visual field where that part of the retina is now a necrotic and coagulated area of soon to be irreversible scar tissue without function.

At this point a few treatments have been attempted like high dose steroids and non-steroidal anti-inflamitoies. None of these have been proven effective at doing much. The thought being that the resulting area of inflammation around the laser burn may continue to be damaged and the visual loss may even increase with time, these drugs may be of benefit but none have been proven so. Interestingly, sometimes laser surgery can be used to try to remove some of the scar tissue affecting the surrounding retina but this has limited benefit too. There are lesser degrees of damage that can occur and cause irreparable injury over a longer time than a flash burn takes. Here again, while this has been identified as a process of damage, not much seems to be helpful. Steroids are a often tried but some now think this may be counterproductive. There are other mechanisms of damage that occur as a late phenomenon that are too technical to describe here, but the point of bringing this up is that it may be useful to see an eye doctor to try to identify these processes and minimize their impact.

So far I have only described retinal injury. There are other parts of the eye that can be damaged as well. Although not as dramatic initially, they can also prove to be debilitating and even disfiguring. Scleral burns, cataracts, and even possibly glaucoma may result.

So, if you think you've fried your retina, be sure to make the trip to the doctor useful by stopping along the way to pick up some eye safety wear. That will likely be the best outcome from a trip to the ophthalmologist, preventing your next injury. Other than staging your injury, not much else is likely to be of much benefit from him or her.

Here is a little suggestion for the newbie thinking of building or buying one of these fabulous lasers we enjoy around here. If what I've just said above is the first time you've heard about these injuries then you are probably not ready to own one. You probably haven't read the stickies in the areas about safety and eye protection. This is a must before attempting to build or buy one of these cool 445nm 2w handhelds, or any other laser over a few watts you couldn't easily buy at the local corner store.

I think it's worth repeating, prevention is the best medicine because in the end, it's really the only good medicine when it comes to laser injuries. God only gave you about 4 to 5 square millimeters of retina to last a lifetime. Don't show Him and all of us here how foolish and ungrateful you are by wasting them over a few seconds of excitement without taking the time to learn how to protect them first.

Going to bed now. Glad I know when I wake up tomorrow my eyes will open and I won't be seeing spots.....

P.S. This post was not directed at any particular individual, after reading it I realized it may be perceived as such. The comments about safety precautions and owning a laser are my sentiments towards anyone who is thinking of owning one of these things and were not directed at the OP.
 
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Hopefully there hasn't been an update because Rob is pissed at us for convincing him to spend money he really couldn't afford just to find out his eyes are fine!
 
I'm guessing he's in the UK ("hartle" being short for hartlepool, a town in England) and since we're not a third world country ;) we don't have to pay to have ourselves fixed up by the hospital.
 
So if you have to pay for services received your third world? If your saying governmental non-interference into the affairs of the service industry is third world, I will take that any day of the week over "free" health care. I've seen what free healthcare looks like and I'm not too interested in it. We do have it here in the USA and it is about as bad as I hear it is everywhere else in the world they have socialized medicine. When it comes to your life and health I'd rather pay for something done right than get for free something done poorly. This is probably too hot of a topic to discuss on this thread, I'd hate to hijack it from the OP's intended purpose. However, I am not afraid to have a discussion else where about it should someone start a post in an appropriate place. I have a bit of a vested interest in it as you might imagine. For now I'll take the inference that the USA is a third world country as a bit of a sarcastic and friendly "poke in the ribs", others here might not though.
Cheers,
JM
 
Rob,
I've been giving some thought to your accident. My same disclaimer above applies, BTW. It may be helpful for you to have your laser tested by someone on the forum to see exactly how much of both the visible and IR output it has. If it is not within the threshold of ability to cause damage with the amount of exposure time you had then it may serve you well to consider an alternate diagnosis. Would hate it for you if it was found later you're symptoms were due to a completely unrelated disorder that could have been detected early. If everything seems fine now, you're not likely to seek medical attention because you assume your symptoms were due to this laser exposure when in fact it was something like optic neuritis, glaucoma, retinal hemorrhage, or whatever. Just some food for thought. I'd be glad to test your laser for you as would several others around the forum. Having said that, even testing your laser now doesn't necessarily mean the current output is the same it was the day of the incident. It could possibly have been stronger then and when tested now may show a lower output. This is unlikely with a fresh set of batteries and an extended testing run, but still possible. Either way, it still may prove to be helpful. I PM'd you a few more questions.
 
Hello. Nice site and forum! Can anyone tell me what protective lens I can buy that will protect me from ALL laser strengths? I mean, within reason, of course. Thank you.
 
Safety goggles coated for that broad of a range will be fairly expensive. I suggest going with Eagle laser safety goggles, and getting a pair for the blue-green range, and then another pair for the red range [of the spectrum].
 
techanic said:
Hello. Nice site and forum! Can anyone tell me what protective lens I can buy that will protect me from ALL laser strengths? I mean, within reason, of course. Thank you.
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Actually, welding helmets are not recommended for laser light. Not sure why, it would seem as if they would shield from anything short of a nuclear blast. Best to stick with known manufacturers of eyewear specifically designed for laser protection.

As with any general question like yours, you can generally find the answer in what we call the "sticky's" in each of the general thread areas. Under the safety posts you can find a good amount of information related to your question.
http://laserpointerforums.com/f53/get-some-safety-goggles-now-75799.html
Also, it appears you are new here at the forum. Welcome! This is a great place to learn everything you ever wanted to know (and some stuff you didn't want to know too) about lasers. New members are often referred to the "Sticky's" for many general questions and I would like to invite you to check out the ones particularly made for new members in the "welcome" section.

So, my helmet suggestion was intended as a joke, don't take that advice. Again, welcome to the forum and hurry and buy some eye protection!
JM
 
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