Ocular trauma or Oedipism: completing the evisceration

Abstract

Self-enucleation, also known as Oedipism, is a rare form of ocular trauma. The objective of this clinical case report is to highlight the importance of diagnosing this unusual injury and thus ensuring its appropriate management. We herein describe a case of a 58-year-old man who presented to hospital with a bleeding left eye. Initially, limited history was provided, however, on further enquiry it was revealed that he had paranoid schizophrenia. The patient eventually had to be sectioned with assistance from the Police and Psychiatry team, upon discovery of self-inflicted mechanism of injury. Subsequently, the patient had evisceration of the left eye and afterwards, demonstrated insight into the pre-operative problems. Literature review emphasizes the importance of close cooperation required between medical specialities to ensure that the underlying cause, usually schizophrenia, is managed in conjunction to the eye injury in order to provide optimum care for the patient.

Keywords

• eye injury
• self-mutilation
• eye haemorrhage