Unimanual upper and lower eyelid retraction for intravitreal injections

Abstract

The surge in intravitreal injections (IVIs) for retinal diseases has made it the most common surgical intervention in ophthalmology. These injections form the life line of diseases like wet macular degeneration, diabetic retinopathy and retinal vein occlusions in not just preserving vision but also improving it. These injections unfortunately need to be repeated every monthly initially and then a maintenance dosage every three monthly. The trauma of having a needle being poked into your eye is very real for most patients. Hence the need to make it as atraumatic a procedure as possible. The use of a speculum to retract the eyelids causes more discomfort to the patients due to the excessive stretch than the actual injection, which is painless under topical proparacaine drops using a 30 G needle.