what are the chances they missed this?

[JayyKehh]

I got injured about 3 weeks ago from basketball with blunt elbow force to my right eye. Since then, I have had the symptoms from macular degeneration like a slight loss of sharpness of vision in my right eye (when I read fine letters, my affected eye can read it, but when I block my right eye and check my left eye, it's so much sharper), and colors seem just a bit dimmer in the affected eye. Since the injury I have gone to the opthalmologist 3 times, each time with a different doctor. Each told me nothing physically seemed to be wrong with the eye. What's the chances all three of them missed an early stage of macular degeneration?

[Ray T Oyakawa, MD]

-

[yarrow]

I asked a friend, an anatomy/physiology professor about your problem, and he answered that while he's not a physician, it sounded like some swelling of the orbital globe or ocular muscles was involved.  This wouldn't be surprising if you got hit in the eye but not badly enough to require emergency treatment.

It's a possibility you should ask your ophthalmologists about.  One of the simple tests for this is that business where they hold up a finger and ask you to track on it as they move the finger from side to side.  Was this done?

As to macular degeneration, it's a "When you hear hoofbeats (at least in this country) you don't start looking for a zebra" situation.  If your three ophthalmologists looked at your retina, as they almost certainly did when examining your eyes, they would have specifically looked at the macula. That's a biggie.  And of course macular degeneration is a disease of old age.  

However, why not go back to them one more time and ask them about the possibility of slight swelling from the injury, and if they have looked at the macula?