I have a weird question (well, it is weird to me). I know staring at the sun can cause irreparable damage to your eyes. However, I am curious - is there anything an ophthalmologist can do after the fact to reduce (note I said reduce, not completely repair) the damage, or are all the ophthalmologists out there going to be telling a bunch of people on Tuesday “sorry - I can’t do anything for you; go away”.
Maybe you don’t understand what irreparable damage means? It means it can’t be repaired. Your eyes may heal themselves and it may take up to 3 months (or not at all), but there is no medical procedure to repair the damage to the retina.
The damage is a burn on the inside of your retina, which is the inside of your eyeball. Think about a severe sunburn on your back. What can a doctor do about that? Nothing. They can dress it to prevent infection if it blisters, recommend cold compresses, but there is nothing they can do to repair the burn itself, and you can’t do those things to the retina.
I do not know what an ophthalmologist would tell you but they can’t fix it.
IANAD
Your body can heal some of the damage naturally. Other than that, there’s no effective treatment.
From here:
Just so I am not misunderstood - I had absolutely no intention of doing anything stupid; I was just truly curious if there is anything opthalmologists might try on idiots that did manage to fry their retinas? I see from ECG that the answer is no.
That sort of injury might lend itself to stem cell therapy. I think it is being considered for macular degeneration too.