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EYE PVD Concerns

Is it normal to have PVD at the age of 31? LE- 6/6 vision and got hit by a very soft rubber ball before 12 years ago. I had a blurred vision for couple of hours and rushed to doctor for treatment. Doctor prescribed eye drops and it got back to absolute normal vision. Could this have forced PVD earlier? RE- Retinal detachment in the childhood due to injury, scleral buck done and now 6/18 vision. My left eye is as good as a normal eye but PVD at this age is making me worried a lot, especially because of poor right eye. It has been more than 6 months and five visit to Retina specialist (including one today) confirmed no RT or RD and retina is stable in both eyes. How long for shall I keep visiting the doctor? I am having lots of floaters, sort of creates cloudy cobweb effects. Will they settle down somewhat?
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177275 tn?1511755244
You misunderstand what I wrote:   If a retina detachment is due to direct trauma to an eye and the other eye is not injured or shocked (think concussion or a blow to the eye so hard it injures other head and brain structures) then the risk in the other eye is not higher than normal.

The major risks for RD besides trauma are: high myopia, positive family history of RD, previous cataract surgery and a few very rare syndromes where RD is part of the complex.  In those without those risk factors the risk of a RD is low about one in 7,000-10,000.

So assuming you have none of these risk factors and the trauma you describe only damaged the one eye your risk of RD in the other eye is extremely low, no higher than described above.  The biggest risk to your good eye while young is more trauma, as you age glaucoma and macular degeneration and systemic disease that damages the eye with diabetes being the prototype

JCH MD
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Avatar universal
Thank you for your response.

I understand what you said however I have a question. RD in my right eye was due to the injury, how does that increase the risk of RD in left eye? Or are you saying the risk is regardless of the injury in the right eye? Kindly confirm.
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177275 tn?1511755244
Let me tell you first off you need to see an ophthalmologist at least yearly the rest of your life.  I would see your retina doctor as often as he/she tells you. I have quite a few cases like you and they see me once/year for a comprehensive exam (glasses, glaucoma, and problems other than the RD history) and the retina Eye MD yearly. We schedule these so someone is looking in the eye twice/year.  

Normally if a person has a retinal detachment (RD) in one eye the risk of a RD in the other eye is 5-20%. Very high. In a case like yours where it was due to trauma and that trauma was only to the eye with the RD the fellow eye would not have a higher than normal rate of RD. Confirm this with your retina doctor.

PVD's are extremely common and a normal part of the eye aging.  For a variety of reasons especially myopia PVDs can occur in very young people. Also floaters can occur in very young eyes even from birth.  By age  30 roughly 10-30% of people have floaters and/or PVD.  Read the many posts on floaters and go to my home page there is a blog on floaters. Floaters sometimes but not always go away. In most instances the brain tunes them out due to "neuroadaptation"

Also because of the reduced vision in one eye you need to be extremely careful about another injury, lead a healthy lifestyle to prevent systemic disease from damaging your eye (e.g. don't smoke nicotine or cannabis, eat a good diet, exercise moderately, don't get obese, check your blood pressure, blood sugars, blood fats (cholesterol and triglycerides), don't drink alcohol in excess of 2 glasses of wine.

Confirm all this with your retina and comprehensive Eye MDs. I'm assuming you wear glasses but if your good eye does not need glasses most ophthalmologists would recommend you wear glasses even if no RX in lens for protection made out of impact resistant lens. They look like all other attractive glasses.

JCH MD
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177275 tn?1511755244
Kansas City, MO
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Grand Prairie, TX
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