Foreign Body, Eye

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Medical Author:

David T. Wong, MD, FRCSC

Coauthor:

Howard A. Blumstein, MD, FAAEM

Medical Editor:

John P. Cunha, DO, FACOEP

John P. Cunha, DO, FACOEP

John P. Cunha, DO, is a U.S. board-certified Emergency Medicine Physician. Dr. Cunha's educational background includes a BS in Biology from Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey, and a DO from the Kansas City University of Medicine and Biosciences in Kansas City, MO. He completed residency training in Emergency Medicine at Newark Beth Israel Medical Center in Newark, New Jersey.

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From the occasional eyelash that wanders uninvited into the eye to the high-speed missile impact from an ejected metal shard, one may find oneself with something in the eye (medically referred to as a foreign body). Depending on what it is and how the injury happened, the foreign body may pierce the eye and cause serious injury or it may simply go away with no long-term problem.

Most people realize that an eyelash in the eye does not require an evaluation by a doctor but that a metal shard in the eye would warrant a visit to your ophthalmologist (a medical doctor who specializes in eye care and surgery), particularly if it has penetrated beyond the superficial layers of the surface of the eye.

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