subject: Preventing Is Better Than Repair For Sports Eye Injuries [print this page] Sports eye injuries are terrible because they often affect children. Kids just play harder compared to their coordination and protective gear. And they tend to play more than the average adult over the age of 20. Because so many sports-related ocular injuries are preventable with simple eyewear, parents should consider getting eyeglasses online to help keep their children's eyes safe.
These kinds of eye injuries are the leading cause of blindness in children. Surprisingly ridiculous statistics stand out, like a one in ten chance of getting an eye injury while playing basketball, or how many permanent visual impairments result from paintball-related eye injuries. The main eye injuries are corneal abrasions, blunt injuries, and penetrating injuries. Although each can be severe, piercing the eyeball tends to be much worse than getting hit in the face or scratching the surface of the eyeball (an abrasion). The worst sports as far as likelihood of getting hurt are baseball and basketball, with soccer, football, lacrosse, and racket sports after that. In baseball, obviously the ball hitting the batter's eye is the most common injury, while in basketball it's often a finger jamming into the eye.
These two types of contact tend to either scratch the cornea or cause blunt trauma to the eye. Blunt impact damage can range from a simple black eye all the way to disconnecting the retina behind the eye, although the latter is relatively uncommon. It's much more likely that a kid will get hit right in the face with a tennis ball and experience some bleeding and swelling inside the eyeball, whether that bleeding is the less serious result of small blood vessels on the outside of the white of the eye bursting, or the more severe hyphema, which is the pooling of blood inside the eyeball under the surface and in front of the iris.
Lastly, penetrating injuries often result when glass breaks and shards piece the eye. They are very severe and can lead to all kinds of long term problems. However, less serious injuries like corneal abrasions and minor blunt trauma are obviously the most common. Recognizing what type of sports eye injury happened, on the other hand, is difficult for someone who is not a trained medical professional.
The reality is that decreasing the likelihood of the most common sports eye injuries is not that difficult with basic preventative measures like protective eye wear. However, it's impossible to completely eliminate the chances, and if they do occur, medical attention should be sought immediately .
