TAMPA, Fla. -- It's a groundbreaking procedure that could save you from going blind or losing your eyes. An eye surgeon at USF successfully transferred a nerve from the forehead into the eye to restore feeling and improve the health of the eye.
Dr. Ilya Leyngold says losing feeling in the eye is relatively common. Most people don't even realize it. He says ophthalmologists see thousands every year. It can be caused by infection from viruses similar to shingles, certain eye surgeries, tumors or even trauma.
"People come in complaining of red eye, blurry vision, eye pain, but they don't know -- necessarily -- that they have lost sensation in the eye," said Leyngold.
There are microscopic nerves in the eye that run to the surface and bring you sensation. That's important because it helps you blink and react to things touching your eye. When those nerves are damaged, they can die and lead to blindness and in many cases loss of the actual eye.
"We would just suture their eyelids shut or give them different types of drops and eventually regardless of what we did these people would go blind or sometimes lose their eye entirely," said Leyngold.
Two years ago Leyngold found what he thought could be the answer for one of his patients.
"I said the only thing I can think of is to take the nerve from your forehead and put it on the surface of your eye otherwise you're going to lose your eye," Leyngold told her.
Doctors in Virginia had performed a nerve transfer from the scalp to the eye in 2009. Leyngold decided to try something similar. During a six hour surgery he took the supra orbital nerve from the forehead and put it on the surface of her eye. It worked.
"Within three months she regained sensation and her vision improved drastically," said Leyngold.
He says she can feel the difference and visibly see it, too. Her eyes are white, clear and she has almost perfect vision.
Leyngold says this is going to change the lives of the thousands of others who suffer from this condition.
"That's why this procedure is so exciting because I think now we do have a solution that these patients can turn to."
