The invisible threat: how to recognize retinal detachment

Ophthalmologists told how to keep your eyes healthy

Myopia and farsightedness have become a real pandemic in recent years. Squinting, wearing glasses and contact lenses is already the vast majority of the world’s population. How to keep your eyes healthy, prevent retinal detachment and why you should not be afraid of laser surgery – “MK” learned from ophthalmologists.

Visual impairment and retinal pathology are very common today. Moreover, these pathologies do not depend on the age of the person.

Tatyana Kasmynina, an ophthalmologist and laser surgeon at the CDC on Presnya, recommends visiting an ophthalmologist at least once a year for preventive purposes:

– Be sure to visit an ophthalmologist at least once a year. But there are risk groups. These are people with myopia, with systemic diseases – diabetes, hypertension, kidney disease. Unfortunately, we are forced to include people aged 50+ in the risk group. Such people need to visit an ophthalmologist to determine the condition of the retina.

As Tatyana Kasmynina said, 100% vision does not mean the absence of problems with the retina. Sometimes patients come to an appointment for preventive purposes or with initial complaints, and despite good vision, various pathologies can also be found in them.

“But if we take a patient in the early stages of the disease, we can slow down the development of the disease or even completely stabilize the patient’s condition with the help of laser correction,” the doctor said.

Ophthalmologists have dispelled the main myths of patients about eye health.

The first is “if the vision is good, then there are no problems with the retina.”

– Even with 100% vision, we sometimes encounter problems both on the periphery of the retina and in its central zone. This is something that has already begun, but is not yet reflected in the patient’s vision. There are a number of diseases where deeper retinal lesions cause various changes. But in the early stages, they already change the structure of the retina, although they do not affect visual acuity. It is at these stages that the disease can be suspended or stopped altogether,” said Anna Semakina, Candidate of Medical Sciences, Head of the Ophthalmology Department at the Open Clinic.

Doctors compare retinal detachment to a time bomb. They are invisible and do not interfere with the patient now, but their progression can lead to retinal detachment, which will reduce the patient’s visual acuity for life. In this case, the only way out is surgery.

“Local retinal detachment or its rupture can subsequently lead to total detachment, so we remind you of the importance of prevention, because today there is everything to prevent the development of such diseases,” says Anna Semakina.

Another popular myth is that “age-related changes in the retina are treated only when visual acuity has decreased significantly.”

Doctors say it’s not like that at all.

– If vision has significantly decreased, it is almost impossible to restore it. There are several age-related changes, such as fibrosis, central dystrophy. In this case, the patient needs constant drug support. In the early phases, laser coagulation can be done. Now the technologies of laser intervention are very different: with different lengths of the spectrum, with different energies. Thanks to this, we can stretch the moment when it will be necessary to connect medicines, – Tatyana Kasmynina explained. – Therefore, the earlier we see these changes, the longer a person retains high vision.

The doctor also adds that modern laser methods are completely painless: “The operations are fast – they last from 5 to 15 minutes. And for 40 years of work, I have seen complications after the laser extremely rarely, so you should not be afraid of it. ”