What is the difference between a detached retina and a torn retina?
Your retina could tear before it detaches. A torn retina usually has the same symptoms as a detached one. If your retina gets torn, the fluid inside your eye can leak underneath and separate the retina from its underlying tissue. That’s a retinal detachment.
Does a retinal tear always lead to detachment?
While potentially dangerous on their own, retinal tears also often precede retinal detachment — an eye emergency that can lead to blindness. However, getting prompt treatment can keep a retinal tear from evolving into a detachment.
What can be mistaken for retinal detachment?
Retinoschisis. Like central retinal vein occlusion, peripheral retinoschisis shares similar indications with another condition. In this instance, it is that peripheral retinoschisis gets misdiagnosed as retinal detachment.
How do you know if you tore your retina?
A sudden appearance of light flashes, which could be the first stage of a retinal tear or detachment. Having a shadow appear in your peripheral (side) field of vision. Seeing a gray curtain slowly moving across your field of vision. Experiencing a sudden decrease in vision, including focusing trouble and blurred vision.
Do symptoms of detached retina come and go?
Sometimes a retinal detachment happens without warning. The first sign of detachment may be a shadow across part of your vision that does not go away. Or you may have new and sudden loss of side (peripheral) vision that gets worse over time.
What does vision look like with a detached retina?
The sudden appearance of many floaters — tiny specks that seem to drift through your field of vision. Flashes of light in one or both eyes (photopsia) Blurred vision. Gradually reduced side (peripheral) vision.
What is the prognosis of retinal detachment?
The longer retinal detachment goes untreated, the greater your risk of permanent vision loss in the affected eye. Warning signs of retinal detachment may include one or all of the following: the sudden appearance of floaters and flashes and reduced vision. Contacting an eye specialist (ophthalmologist) right away can help save your vision.
Can a detached retina heal on its own?
While a tear on its own will not cause a loss of vision, a retinal detachment can. Detachments also require more elaborate surgery, while the treatment of a retinal tear is usually straightforward and can be done in the ophthalmologist s office.
What does a detached retina feel like?
Symptoms of a detached retina may include: The sudden appearance of “floaters” (dark, semi-transparent, floating shapes) in the field of vision. Most worrisome is a shower of black dots.
What can cause retinal detachment?
The retinal tear that triggers a retinal detachment sometimes is caused by trauma. More often, it is caused by a change in the gel-like consistency of the vitreous fluid that can occur as a part of aging. This age-related change can occur unpredictably in older people, and there is no way to prevent it.