Believe I damaged my vision... (explanation inside)

[RonFi]

Hi, hoping someone could offer me some information as to what is happening to my eye
Here's what happened:

I slept with my contacts on (this is like my second time... hopefully this is some helpful information?) and then at night time I got back to my dorm, took off my contacts and I felt something in my left eye. I wash it out with water and I see an eyelash on my eye so I try to remove it with my fingers, then OK good, I got it out. Next day I notice that I have this blindspot on my left eye that I DID NOT have before. Could I have hurt my eye while trying to remove the eyelash with my finger? I was as cautious as I could be while removing the eyelash and gentle as ever.

I was looking at my sink in my dorm and I noticed that I could not see the lightbult that was on my desk (the light was on). Now, I had one eye closed (the right eye) and the lightbult was not visible when my right eye was closed, but when I opened my right eye I could see it because of my right eye's vision. The blindspot is not very noticeable during the day, more like the night time. If I close my right eye and only see through my left eye, I just see this circular fuzzyness/blurry spot on the left of my eye; its about 1 inch or so to the left of the center of my eye's vision. So if I hold up my finger to the blindspot, I can see the top and the bottom, not the middle. I've also tested and noticed that this blindspot "goes away" if I move my finger close to my eye, so its only there after a certain distance.

I believe that I have really damaged my eye after that night and feel completely stupid. Could this possibly be temporarily or permanent damage? Are there steroids to help heal this (of course, I will go to the doctor tomorrow and get everything prescribed.Possibly have eye laser surgery?

Could this be a cataract?

Thank you SO much for any information you can offer me, even if its very minimal.

[RobertJ]

Well I hope everything works out for you.  I have a blurry / blind spot in my vision as well that is not in the natural place.  They did an angiogram on my eye a week or so ago and found a spot that shows that my retina my be changing.  I wonder if they will do an angiogram on your eye as well.  The doctors were not able to see the spot on my retinal using any other test but that one.  The full name of the test is a fluorescein [FLOR-eh-seen] angiogram.  In this test they injected a dye in my left hand's vein and then took pictures on several occasions over 10 minutes.  If it was not for me complaining about my bind / blurry spot, they would have never found it;  I go to a retinal specialist on the 29th to review the pictures taken in the angiogram. At least the doctors can see that there really is something wrong after this test.  Luckily my spot is not big enough to cause any  problems while reading or driving, and I do not think it would cause me to be disqualified from the army / police force.   I wish you the best of luck.  Hopefully it is something that will go away over time.

[RonFi]

Forgot to add... when you have a blindspot, you generally ignore it right because its natural? Well with my eye, I see a gray circle there (which is where I can't see) and with that test the blindspot's color was white, not gray (the one I have)... plus, if I keep staring at a particular place for a while, that grey spot slowly begins to turn black a bit (shady black).

[RonFi]

It isn't natural.
If it was natural then I would have noticed it a long time ago. Why would there be a blind spot so close to the center of my eye? I've done tests before with blindspots by moving close or away to the object, this is not a natural blindspot.

[RobertJ]

http://serendip.brynmawr.edu/bb/blindspot1.html You can also go here.  They have even more tests.

[RobertJ]

"I just see this circular fuzzyness/blurry spot on the left of my eye; its about 1 inch or so to the left of the center of my eye's vision. So if I hold up my finger to the blindspot, I can see the top and the bottom, not the middle."  

Are you sure this is not your natural blindspot?  You said you close your right eye so that means that you are using your left eye.  Your natural blindspot for your left eye is to the left of your center of vision, and the blindspot for your right eye is to the right of your central vision.   I can do the same exact thing you are telling me.  I can make my middle of my finger dissapear and still see the top and bottom.  I can make any object I put in that spot disappear.  If you want to test it you could go here.  http://serendip.brynmawr.edu/bb/blindspot/  Just take your time until you get it down with both eyes.  BOTH eyes do have a blindspot so find the one on your right eye as well and see if it is the same as the left.  

PS.  It was freaky when I first found out that I had one too!  I thought I was going blind.  

[Michael J Kutryb, MD]

You have me puzzled as well.

MJK MD

[RonFi]

I went to the emergency room, they said everything looked alright. Then I was sent to the opthometrist, he checked everything and did a visual field test as well, nothing was found. I was finally sent to a retinal specialist and even he couldn't figure out what was wrong, he did an OCT (or OTC?) and said the images were fine. Right now, all that's left is for me to go to the MRI, scheduled monday, and hopefully there isn't anything wrong.

The retinal specialist did say one thing though and that it may be a disorder among my age group (young men, 18 years old) in which stress/caffeine could cause temporary blindspots to occur. I don't remember the name of the disorder he said it was, but before this happened I was pretty stressed out with exams, but I wouldn't think that it could be started off from removing something in my eye. From this, he said that I may not have noticed it and since I was in the dark, that may have helped me notice the blindpsot.

[Michael J Kutryb, MD]

You should go to the emergency room right now.  You either have a serious cornea infection or abrasion or perhaps some sort of serious retinal detachment or other retinal problem.  This is the real deal - you are sitting there telling us that you have a serious loss of vision and you are doing nothing about it.  Please go to the emergency room, at least they should be able to offer some sort of help.

MJK MD

[RonFi]

Forgot to add... the reason I haven't gone to a doctor yet is because in Tallahassee all the medical centers are closed over the weekend. Only the hospitals are open. So I have to wait to go to the student health center tomorrow. Quite weird, this is the only place that I know of that closes lots of places down on the weekend.