Straight talk
We cannot tell you it is nothing
What you might expect to hear
“It's probably just a burst blood vessel.”
What is actually true
Not over a telephone, and not from a description. The most alarming-looking eye in this trade is usually the harmless one, and several of the ones that need seeing today look unremarkable from across a room.
Some of this cannot wait for an appointment. Sight lost suddenly, a curtain or shadow across your vision, a shower of new floaters with flashes of light, or a painful red eye with vision that has dropped: that is an emergency room today, not an appointment. Everything else, ring and describe it.
Why
A bright red patch across the white of one eye is the thing that frightens people most and is very often nothing. A slightly pink eye with an ache behind it and vision that has gone a little misty is the one that should not wait, and it is the one people sit on for four days. Any rule of thumb short enough to give on a telephone gets that pairing the wrong way round, which is why we do not give one.
What we do instead
Four things mean now rather than tomorrow, and they are worth knowing by heart: sight lost suddenly, a curtain or shadow moving across the vision, a shower of new floaters with flashes of light, or a painful red eye with vision that has dropped. Any of those is an emergency room today. Everything else, ring us and describe it.
The other eight
Straight answers to the rest of what this site will not pretend.
If in doubt, ring and describe it
We keep time free every day for eyes that cannot wait until next week.