When soft contact lenses first came on the scene, the ocular community went wild.

People no longer had to put up with the initial discomfort of hard lenses, and a more frequent replacement schedule surely meant better overall health for the eye, right?

In many cases this was so. The first soft lenses were made of a material called HEMA, a plastic-like polymer that made the lenses very soft and comfortable. The downside to this material was that it didn’t allow very much oxygen to the cornea (significantly less than the hard lenses), which bred a different line of health risks to the eye.

As contact lens companies tried to deal with these new issues, they started to create lenses that you not only replaced more frequently, but also the materials themselves changed from HEMA to SiHy, or silicone hydrogel. The oxygen transmission problem was solved, but an interesting new phenomenon occurred.

Because these were supposed to be the “healthiest” lenses ever created, many...

The retina is the nerve tissue that lines the inside back wall of your eye. Light travels through the pupil and lens and is focused on the retina, where it is converted into a neural impulse and transmitted to the brain. If there is a break in the retina, fluid can track underneath the retina and separate it from the eye wall. Depending on the location and degree of retinal detachment, there can be very serious vision loss.

Symptoms

The three 3 F’s are the most common symptoms of a retinal detachment:

• Flashes: Flashing lights that are usually seen in peripheral (side) vision.

• Floaters: Hundreds of dark spots that persist in the center of vision.

• Field cut: Curtain or shadow that usually starts in peripheral vision that may move to involve the center of vision.

Causes

Retinal detachments can be broadly divided into three categories depending on the cause of the detachment:

Rhegmatogenous retinal detachments: Rhegmatogenous means “arising from a rupture,”...