The "oops my eye" thread.

[alennn]

Sad to hear this. I was blinded by a 100mW-ish 532nm laser, and to this day I can still see that tiny spot if I really try but I must find a proper background or color to see it.
The first bit I'm gonna buy are some protection goggles, even before I'll make or buy a laser.

 

[Akeyla]

One positive thing today though, yesterday before calling the hospital I was not able to read with my right eye. Today I can again. I have a theory on it, that dead tissue on the retina was breaking free causing the extra blur, and that necrotic tissue is now floating around in the vitreous fluid. Doctor said the floaters were grey colored and he hadn't seen anything like it before. He was a younger Doctor, but regardless, he spoke with the retinal specialist and if there was anything that needed to be done yesterday it would have been.

It's more just FML and hope for the best at this point. There is stem cell research into repairing the retina, something that I'll ask the specialist about, but that's getting ahead of myself for the time being.

 

[Akeyla]

I'm not working at the moment due to other life circumstances, my Father is very late stage cancer and I'm helping to take care of him. My Bachelors degree is in Computer Science, and for that no, the eye damage wouldn't make a difference.

However, while I have an almost innate ability for computers I don't find the field of work enjoying. I've been looking at going back to graduate school for biochemistry and pharmacology. Something that HAS been on my mind since is that as far as using a microscope, I don't think that eye will be too functional. At least the left one still works . . .

 

[Sigurthr]

[not joking] invest in an eye patch to cover the left eye whenever in a laser environment. Sure-fire 100% protection.

 

[IsaacT]

^good idea. Now that one still works but not super well, just expose the bad eye.

 

[Akeyla]

Actually is a good idea. I have an eye patch already that I wore for a couple days after the Atropine drop I was given anyways.

The floaters are incredibly annoying. The small blur/blind spot I had was "tolerable" but these are just f-in annoying. Enough that if the retina specialist says he can remove them safely, they're getting removed.

 

[Akeyla]

I haven't updated this with any information in a few weeks. However things have essentially gotten worse, continuously, since the initial burn. Here's the log I've been keeping.

6/29/2014
Driving across the state. My eye has essentially gotten worse over the course of the entire week. The line of floaters is much less pronounced, there's now a couple while like tentacles hanging down through the center of my vision, and while not black spots like before, at times I can see, literally, hundreds of these small floaters. When going outside, or in bright light, they are much more noticeable. Return to Harborview ED. Opthamologist, same guy (luckily, IMO), is on call. He looks again, says he still doesn't see any bleeding, and still that there isn't anything he can do on an interventional emergency basis. I asked if they could open my eye, clean it out, and sew it up (more or less). It was stated that while it IS possible, the risks outweigh the benefits, and that you are nearly 100% assured to end with a cataract and need follow up surgery for it months later. I have an appointment with the retina specialist in a week. The doctor said to keep that appointment, and that I did do the right thing by returning despite the fact that nothing could be done. The eye itself still aches, and I am still having headaches from it, although not constant. 20/15 left eye, 20/50 right eye, 20/20 overall.

6/30/2014
Today there's a flashing in my right eye. I say my right eye but even if I cover / close my right eye I can still see it in the left. It's like a small strobing effect in the center of my vision. Enough to be distracting but not dangerously so. In the right eye it almost looks like a three leaf clover blinking probably 10 - 20 times per second. In the left eye it's more like a 3/4 circle doing a tunneling effect that blinks the same. They are like waves of visual distortion, like when you see heat rise from something and distort the image. This is one of the things they told me to watch out for, that could mean a bigger problem. Still have headaches.

7/7/2014
HMC. Retina specialist took a lot of pictures of my eye with different machines. A couple of the pictures made me think "oh shit" by the looks of them. The blinking in my eye is from the vitreous pulling on the retina. The doctor believes the headaches are also not caused by the eye injury but from high blood pressure, and has asked me to monitor it. Again, nothing can be done, and time will tell.

7/13/2014
11am 135/78 @ 92

7/14/2014
1:30pm 138/68 @ 64, eye is blinking like crazy. Still aches.

7/15/2014
Finally documenting everything.
3:59pm 138/81 @ 58, eye is blinking, and it still aches.

Something I've noticed, first thing in the morning, the eye is damn near useless if I cover my left. It's vision is substantially worse than it is "usually". It seems to clear up 15-30 minutes after waking up. At this point if I cover my left eye I can read large text right just my right eye, but everything is blurry from all the floaters. If I go outside I see hundreds, if not thousands of tiny black spots momentarily. These are from the floaters casting shadows onto the retina.

Today though is the first day in weeks I've actually noticed the blind spot itself. I don't know if this is an improvement or not, but for some reason it seems like it is. Perhaps things are clearing up some? Eye still aches.

So that's my log up till current.

TL;DR
It has only gotten continually worse with specialist saying there is little to nothing that can be done.

 

[alennn]

Oh god, I hope you only get better!

 

[Rifter]

This is the type of horror story that makes me reconsider the hobby. Even taking pictures last night of all my lasers(sub 300mw) made me nervous and I had 2 pairs of goggles on most of the time to cover all the spectrums.

To the OP I truly hope that there is something that can be done to at least make an improvement in your eyes, it seems strange to me that its getting worse(as laser damage is instant) it makes me think perhaps it isn't just the laser but some other issue as well that might be curable.

 

[Sigurthr]

Not to detract from the OP, but it sounds like the thread may be open for other's incidents as well.

I've got some mostly-compensated-for-by-my-brain spots in my right eye from a crowdscanning 532nm laser show years ago. Today I had a visual field mapping test at the opthamologist and it was evident that there is some damage to my right eye. I won't get the official results for two to four weeks though. There is nothing that can be done treatment wise due to the age of the injury, so there's no rush.

I'd like to point out that they do this test by projecting faint yellow/green spots (probably 555nm) on a concave dome while you focus on a central yellow/green spot and you press a button when you see a spot.

With my right eye I had a very hard time seeing the faint yellow spot on the white background unless it was central to my vision, as there just wasn't much contrast at all. There were many locations where I could see the spot but it did not look yellow/green at all but more red shifted like it was 615nm or so. It also looked a lot dimmer. I suspect I have green pigment damage at these locations. I don't see the spots in my vision at all times, only against certain backgrounds at certain light levels, mostly noticeable when the purkinje shift starts to take place before scotopic vision kicks in. My left eye saw the projected yellow spots pretty much instantaneously and they all looked yellow, not red shifted. To my left eye the projected spots were actually bright enough that I was seeing after images for them, where as with my right eye the projected spots were just barely perceivable unless directly in the center of vision.

 

[upaa27]

Never in my experience have I ever been shot in the eye with a 5mw+ laser. I have shot myself with my 1.2w 445 by accident but all I got was a small burn there. Hope your recovery is successful and fast.

 

[Akeyla]

To the OP I truly hope that there is something that can be done to at least make an improvement in your eyes, it seems strange to me that its getting worse(as laser damage is instant) it makes me think perhaps it isn't just the laser but some other issue as well that might be curable.

Sadly it is all laser damage, although the laser damage might have caused a secondary injury. All the debris that is floating around in the vitreous fluid, the jelly inside your eye, is "liberated retina tissue", basically the rods and cones I burnt off are floating around. While I understand what is happening in my eye, to an extent, it does surprise me also that for a full month it worsened after the injury.

Think of it like a scab over the burn that then fell of and has broken into a thousand little pieces in my eye, blurring everything. There's no where for it to go being in, well, more or less in the closed little ball that is my eye. Medically, when looking through everything, there is a LOT more to the eye than I had thought.

There IS surgery that can be done, the MD's just say the risks are greater than the payoff. I'm inclined to disagree. Yesterday while we (the g/f and I) were out I covered my left eye to see what I could read. With just the right eye I could essentially read about 3/4th's of road signs as we passed them. Couldn't read a thing on them till nearly upon them. I'm speaking of the green street signs not the big ones, those I could read about two lines of text on before we'd pass them. Aside from depth perception it's worthless and while driving it can be distracting, as I'll see something in my right eye and instinctively go to look for it. Based on these I'm willing to put depth perception on the surgical table in exchange for a fully working eye, so when I see the doctor again I'm going to be more, insistent?

C'est la vie. That's my update for the morning.

 

[Atomicrox]

My best wishes to you. This is the first time I've read about permanent damage from a reflected beam... I knew it could happen, but now it seems much more real :/


I actually had a close call last week. I had just built my 2W 462nm and couldn't resist taking it outside for some fun.

Then I remembered last year I had glued a 2D diffraction grating to a paper cylinder (like the brown thing inside a toilet paper roll). It fitted my Dominator perfectly, attaching to the front of the laser just outside the focusing ring. I went and tried it with the 462nm (501B host). What I didn't realise during the heat of the moment was that the 501B was too small and the cylinder let the retro-reflected beams escape...

Only realised that when I had my head just behind it. Got a reflected hit on my eye. Had an after image for a couple minutes (like when you look at the sun) but after that it went back to normal. I was scared like hell during those minutes.

I was lucky in that it was probably one of many reflected and diffracted beams, with poor divergence. My prescription glasses (highly divergent with no AR coating - I hate the green tint) probably helped as well. I'm guessing it was "only" a couple tens of mW.

I don't think I'll ever shine a high power laser on a grating again.

 

[Akeyla]

This needed a follow up.

At this point I wish it was a laser burn as I had thought and was originally diagnosed with, but instead it is a serious infection of my retina and the rest of my eye. I'm taking a systemic drug and have had multiple intravitreal injections (needle in the eye), and look forward to many surgeries. This isn't my medical QQ thread, so I'm leaving it at that.

Regardless, although my damage didn't as I suspect come from the laser, treat them with respect.

~Akeyla

 

[alessnilsen]

Sorry for your injury, I hope you get better, just let us informed.

The only time I got hit by a laser beam was with a 532nm pen (fake 200mW), I accidentally pointed it to a window, and the beam reflected back to me, the window was just in front of me, was night and I was pointing to the trees at my neighbors.

I was about 5 meters away from the window, I think the reflected beam was with a much bigger divergence than the original beam, but was enough to scare me, only instantaneous blind, nothing permanent.

This was before I find this forum, now I'm concerned about the risks.

Now I have goggles, I only wear it when I use my laser inside my room, or when it isn't fixed into a tripod.

Because of this my new 1W blue laser will have a power section switch, that will limit the total output power. And will ONLY be operated by me.