Hi all, I had an idea for a story the other day and it involves a character going completely and irreversibly blind. I was looking for reasons for this and most of them are quite slow process's. Then I saw head injuries and thought that would be alright. However my wife seems to think this is unbelievable. Interested to see what readers think of that scenario. Would you believe it? Cheers
A guy I know recently went blind. He has diabetes and had a reaction then all his organs basically shut down. When they were able to get him stabilized everything went back to normal except his eyes.
Really? That's terrible, the sort of thing you know can happen but vaguely feel like it doesn't happen, if you know what I mean. Was it sudden?
There are a multitude of reasons why you can go blind. For instance, your vision can slowly detriorate over time until eventually, you will be blind. That is the case with me where in roughly 30 years time my vision will have deteriorate to blindness. I can talk mostly about that but you want something short, soooo. Head injuries are complex and any doctor will say that wounding or otherwise affecting the brain can have all sorts of difficulties and the results can be almost random. So I would say it is entierly possible, but by no means is it a certainty. There is a bug in africa that can enter the eyes and feed of the eye, eventually you will go blind. Forgot the name of those nasty little things. But perhaps you can use that? Outside of head injuries, organ failure, disease and improbably injuries, there is little else that I know about personally. I'm not optometrist(?) though, perhaps going doing down and asking one might be an idea?. A few reasons are done perposefully - usually as a result of torture as eyes are not usually a target in combat or otherwise (too small and hard to hit). Sawdust or salt in the eyes. However, as far as torture goes it isn't very good, as the eyes have no nerve endings. So you don't feel pain there. It is usually used as a kind of "set up". Showing to the victim that the torturers are sincere. Also, the act of removing the vision of people can be extremely frightening, and can thereby be used as a form of psychological torture. But there are much more efficient way to psychologicaly torture people.
One ailment that might suit your needs is optic neuritis; it results from damage to or loss of the myelin sheath of the optic nerve. It can range from blind spots to obscured vision to total blindness in one or both eyes. It's a common symptom in multiple slerosis, but can be associated with almost any degenerative neurological condition. Onset is usually pretty quick- not there then there- but staged. One degree topped by a greater degree, topped by an even greater degree. Any remission is a hit or miss proposition. It's not guaranteed to go away, but it's also not guaranteed to be forever.
Well, why not just have their eyes damaged directly somehow, unless their eyes need to stay intact for some reason. Maybe their eyes were damaged by looking directly at some type of ultra-powerful light?
It was very sudden. I'd guess it happened over the span of a few weeks in late 2017. I didn't hear about it right away but apparently he was 30 minutes away from death before he miraculously recovered. He's been accepting and optimistic about it somehow. I don't think I could handle being in his situation.
What about gunshot wound? Acid in the eyes? Industrial accident - welding etc Car accident? Look at the Royal National institute for the Blind website about eye conditions. Probably when you're finished reading it you'll be glad you don't have a problem, but it might be a start if you're looking for an illness rather than injuries
A lot of things can cause someone to go blind. For instance extreme trauma to either temple can cause someone to go blind. The optic nerve believe it or not is actually not very durable at all. That is a big reason why it is buried so deep in our skull. And while I think of it things that cause increased ICP (inter cranial pressure) can also cause blindness as well. Hope it helps.
Eye infections as a result of corneal abrasions (contact lens scratching or cutting your your cornea, for example) can make you go blind. I lost a good portion of the sight in my right eye from that combo as a teen because infections of the eye can be notoriously difficult to cure. They were worried I'd completely lose my sight in that eye. Contrary to what @Necronox said, it's also painful as hell. They gave me super heavy duty pain meds, and there was about a week I couldn't remember. ETA: Google keratitis and try not to look at the images. I remember it progressed really quickly and healed slowly.
