Aftermath of Black Eye

A couple years back, I was punched extremely hard directly in my eye for some unknown reason, shortly afterwards my nose started bleeding.  I saw a general family physician and he said it was just a common black eye.  It took a couple weeks for the swelling to go down, and about a month or so for the redness in my eye to go away, and for the pain in my eyeball itself to go away also.  I basically have no vision problems as told to me by 2 different optometrists, but only experience double vision when looking directly up, down, or to the side.  My concern is my appearance. It is very obvious when looking at me that something happened to my eye.  It almost seems as if my eye was pushed back or flattened as opposed to my other, round and spherical eye.  Basically one eye sticks out of my orbital cavity, while the other sits inside.  My questions are, is there something, anything that can be done fix my eye cosmetically?  Is there any type of surgery/procedure that can reshape or bring the other eye outwards to its normal position?  And what exactly happened internally in the eye to cause this?  This has definitely affected me mentally as well as physically for quite some time now.  Any help would be much appreciated.  Sorry for the long post.

[Michael J Kutryb, MD]

You probably had an orbital blow-out fracture and now the punched side has a sunken in eye (enophthalmos) and double vision.  This is because one or more of the walls of the eye socket were fractured - thus making the eye socket roomier - and causing the eye sink back into the socket somewhat.  The extraocular muscles were likely affected as well by the fracture - causing double vision in certain gaze positions - most commonly up or down.  Bottom line - you need to see an ophthalmologist who is an oculoplastic surgeon and discuss surgical options.  Research orbital blow out fracture on internet.  Good Luck.

MJK MD