What Eye Symptoms Require Immediate Medical Attention?
Posted by: Pepose Vision Institute in Eye Care, Glaucoma, Retina on November 7, 2025
Your eyes can signal serious medical conditions that require prompt evaluation and attention. While many eye symptoms resolve on their own, certain warning signs indicate urgent problems that could result in permanent vision loss without immediate treatment.
Knowing the difference between minor irritation and true emergencies helps you respond appropriately. Keep reading to learn which eye symptoms demand urgent care, so you can protect your vision and overall health.
Sudden Vision Loss Or Significant Vision Changes
Any sudden change in your vision should be treated as an emergency. Loss of vision in one or both eyes, flashes of light, new floaters, or a dark curtain moving across your field of view may indicate a serious condition such as a retinal detachment or stroke. These conditions can progress rapidly and require immediate attention.
At Pepose Vision Institute, our team is trained to evaluate urgent vision changes using advanced diagnostic imaging. If your symptoms suggest a retinal or neurological emergency, we’ll help coordinate the next steps right away to ensure you receive the care you need as quickly as possible.
When it comes to your vision, time matters and we’re here to help you take the right action fast.
Severe Eye Pain Or Persistent Discomfort
Eye pain differs significantly from the mild irritation caused by dry eyes or tired eyes. Severe eye pain, particularly when accompanied by vision changes, redness, or light sensitivity, can indicate acute angle-closure glaucoma, corneal ulceration, or other serious conditions.
Acute angle-closure glaucoma causes sudden, severe eye pain often described as deep and throbbing. Patients typically experience this pain alongside blurred vision, seeing halos around lights, and nausea. This condition can cause permanent vision loss within hours if left untreated.
Corneal abrasions and ulcers also cause significant pain, particularly when blinking or in bright light. While corneal abrasions often result from trauma you’ll remember, corneal ulcers can develop from contact lens overwear or infections. Both require professional evaluation to prevent scarring and permanent vision damage.
Pain following any eye surgery, even if you had surgery weeks ago, warrants immediate contact with your eye surgeon. Post-surgical infections can develop rapidly and require aggressive treatment.
Eye Trauma And Foreign Body Injuries
Any significant trauma to the eye requires immediate evaluation, even if your vision seems unaffected initially. Blunt force trauma can cause internal eye damage not visible externally, including retinal tears, bleeding inside the eye, or fractures of the eye socket bones.
Penetrating eye injuries, where an object has pierced the eye, require careful handling. Do not attempt to remove any object embedded in the eye. Cover the eye gently with a protective shield, avoid applying pressure, and seek emergency care immediately.
Chemical exposures represent true ocular emergencies requiring immediate action. Chemical burns can cause permanent damage within minutes, making rapid irrigation your first priority.
If you suspect a foreign body is embedded in your eye rather than on the surface, seek immediate care.
Signs Of Eye Infection
Eye infections range from mild conjunctivitis to sight-threatening conditions. Certain infection symptoms indicate serious problems requiring urgent treatment rather than over-the-counter remedies.
Seek immediate care for eye infections accompanied by vision changes, severe pain, extreme light sensitivity, or significant swelling of the eyelids and surrounding tissues. These symptoms can indicate infections that have spread beyond the eye’s surface into deeper structures.
Contact lens wearers face higher risks for serious corneal infections. If you wear contacts and develop eye pain, redness, discharge, or light sensitivity that doesn’t improve within a few hours of removing your lenses, see your eye doctor right away.
Flashes, Floaters, And Visual Disturbances
New floaters or flashes of light in your vision can indicate retinal problems requiring urgent evaluation. While many people have occasional floaters that are harmless, sudden onset of multiple new floaters, particularly when accompanied by flashes of light or a shadow in your peripheral vision, suggests possible retinal detachment.
Seeing wavy lines, distorted straight lines, or broken lines in your vision can indicate problems with the macula, the central part of your retina responsible for detailed vision. When straight lines appear wavy or grid patterns look distorted, this may signal macular degeneration, macular edema, or other conditions affecting central vision.
While not always an immediate emergency, the sudden onset of these distortions warrants prompt evaluation to determine the underlying cause and prevent further vision loss.
When To Seek Emergency Care Versus Urgent Care
Understanding the difference between emergency room care and urgent eye care visits can help you get appropriate treatment quickly. True eye emergencies requiring immediate ER evaluation include chemical burns, penetrating injuries, sudden complete vision loss, and trauma with suspected globe rupture.
Most other urgent eye conditions benefit from evaluation by eye specialists rather than general emergency physicians. For urgent eye problems, contact your eye doctor.
Conditions appropriate for urgent eye specialist care include sudden partial vision loss, severe eye pain, acute infection symptoms, suspected retinal detachment, and significant (but not penetrating) eye trauma. At Pepose Vision Institute, our experienced specialists can provide definitive diagnosis and treatment during these urgent visits.
When in doubt about the severity of your symptoms, visit the emergency room. It’s better to seek immediate evaluation and have your concerns addressed than to risk permanent vision damage by waiting. Emergency physicians can stabilize your condition and connect you with eye specialists when needed.
Don’t wait to seek care when your vision is at risk. Schedule an appointment at Pepose Vision Institute in St. Louis, MO, today if you’re experiencing concerning eye symptoms.
