Orbital Fracture

I was 13 years old when I first found out what an orbital fracture was. I found this out the hard way, not a way that anyone would want to find this out. I was struck in the eye with a baseball causing a serious facial trauma. An orbital bone fracture is a fracture that is caused from some kind of trauma to the face. The bone is located directly underneath the eye. This is the bone that the eye itself sits upon. Fracturing this can have serious immediate effects on an individual and can even pose threats in the future. On top of all this it is not fun and is actually quite painful.

According to Medscape from WebMD, an online medical site, orbital bone fractures can occur in several different ways. Some common ways that theses injuries occur include the following: sport related incidents, fights, and car accidents to name just a few. In fact eighty percent of these injuries are from car accidents. These usually happen from the air bad hitting a person in the face. This fracture is the second most common fracture of the facial bones, first is the nasal cavity. This actually ties in very well with the orbital bone fracture because many times when the orbital bone is fractured the nasal cavity is also fractured, which happened in my case. These injuries are also more common in males than in females by a four to one ratio. This is because males are much more active. Also, there is the age factor to look at as well. This injury occurs in the younger generations of people. It is more likely to happen in the first decades of life rather than the second or third. Younger generations tend to be more active than older people. Children are always outside playing, and they play sports or partake in activities that are rougher and more contact then what an older person would partake in.

After experiencing such an injury the face is going to be pretty bruised and swollen. Bruising can take two or three months to go away. As far as the swelling, that will take about a week to be back to normal. The eye after such an injury is very sensitive to everything. Patients wear eye patches for the first week or so because the light aggravates it easily. Also, any horseplay or physical activity is out of the question. If the bone is hit of moved there can be serious consequences. To add, loss of vision could occur in that eye if not properly taken care of, so this is no light injury it is very serious. Nose blowing is also off limits because of the stress that it puts on the orbital wall by the naval cavity. If nose blowing does take place it can cause serious problems and could result in the bone again collapsing or even possibly another surgery could be needed.

Fracturing this facial bone can have a long term effect on people. The patient who has fractured this bone is to have multiple checkups for the eye. The doctor checks the pressure in the eye, as well as the bone itself to make sure the eye is not dropping. The doctors also dilate they eye so he can see if the patient is showing signs of serious eye diseases especially glaucoma.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/30087170@N00/3307184268/

http://emedicine.medscape.com/article/825772-overview