Eye Injury Medical Malpractice In Illinois

We are experienced attorneys who will help you find the best medical malpractice attorney for your case. For a FREE case review with a lawyer, please contact us at 312-346-5320.

While no medical injury is a good one, there are few more life altering than losing your ability to see. It can take you from living independently to needing to move into a nursing home or requiring someone to help you with basic life activities. When this injury occurs due to the negligence of a doctor or medical provider, you can sue them and recover damage through a medical malpractice lawsuit.

Lawsuits against ophthalmologists, optometrists and others can happen from a variety of reasons. The most common is from errors during lense replacement procedures. Many of the doctors who perform these surgeries operate their business like a factory assembly line. They make so much money from doing them and they will do dozens in a day when they can. This leads to errors, often due to carelessness as they try to rush through these procedures and make as much money as possible.

It is not the lense being placed improperly alone that leads to a lawsuit typically. It is their failure to realize they made a mistake and correct it in a timely manner. When they are negligent this way, it can lead to problems such as vision loss, a cornea transplant or corneal edema. All of these issues can lead to devastating, permanent injuries and/or result in needing significant medical care. While not every patient can successfully sue, if this happens to you or someone you know, it is definitely worth having it investigated.

Another common eye doctor mistake in Illinois is failure to diagnose an eye stroke. This happens when there is a lack of blood flow to the tissue in front of the optic nerve. If it is not timely treated, it can lead to sudden and permanent vision loss. These strokes happen as a result of increased blood pressure which results in a blockage that can restrict the blood flow. The good news is that it can be easily diagnosed by putting drops in your eye to dilate your pupils. It can also be treated easily with steroids and other medications. But if not caught in time, the results can be catastrophic. This is medicine that emergency room doctors should be aware of if you go to their facility and certainly any eye doctor should be aware of as well.

Glaucoma is another condition that can be easily caught on an exam and treated with eye drops. It is a disease that affects the optic nerve, usually from increased fluid and pressure in the eye. Unfortunately if not treated correctly and in a timely manner, it can cause irreversible vision loss as well. As a result, lawsuits for glaucoma patients are almost always for a failure to diagnose the problem.

There are of course many other reasons that you might have a lawsuit against an eye doctor. These include anesthesia errors during a medical procedure, them damaging your retina during surgery, and improperly injecting your eye.