Retina

The detached retina is a serious and sight-threatening experience, occurring when the retina becomes separated from its primary supportive tissue. The retina cannot work when these layers are detached. And unless soon the retina is reattached, permanent vision loss may result.

Do you struggle reading road signs and recognizing faces from distance? You could be suffering from myopia, otherwise known as nearsightedness. High levels of nearsightedness also can cause retinal detachment. This is because highly nearsighted people typically have longer-than-normal eyeballs with thinner retinas that are more prone to detachments.

A retinal detachment happens when fluid gets through a fine tear in the retina, allowing it to detach abnormally from the back wall of the eye. However, some of the eye surgeries may enhance the risk of having retinal detachment e.g. history of surgery for eye trauma, complicated cataract surgery etc.

All the patients with retinal detachments must undergo surgery for repositioning of the retina in its right place. Otherwise, the retina may lose its ability to function, which will result in permanent blindness. The method by which retinal detachment is settled depends upon characteristics of the detachment. Our retina experts will opt for sutureless vitrectomy / scleral buckling as per the need of a particular case.

This surgical procedure includes putting a flexible band (scleral buckle) around the eye to combat the force that detaches out the retina. The fluid below the detached retina is drained, which helps the retina to settle back into its normal position.

This procedure is commonly used to repair a detachment of the retina. The vitreous fluid that holds the retina is removed from the eye and is replaced by a gas bubble / oil bubble to keep the retina in place. while the gas bubble slowly gets replaced by aqueous of the eye, oil bubble is required to drained by another surgical procedure called silicon oil removal (SOR) at a later date. Vitrectomy may some time requires to be combined with scleral buckling.

During this procedure, in combination with retinal laser or cryotherapy, a gas bubble is injected into the vitreous cavity of the eye.The gas bubble drives the detached retina in place against the supporting layer underneath. Our retina experts may suggest the patients to maintain a certain head positioning for few days. The gas bubble gets replaced by the aqueous of the eye gradually.