A Case of Eyeball Perforation Through Self-injury Found in a Narcoleptic Patient

ABSTRACT

PURPOSE: Narcolepsy is a specific neurologic syndrome consisting of excessive daytime drowsiness, cataplexy, and the additional phenomena of sleep paralysis and intense dreamlike hallucinations at sleep-wake transitions. We are reporting a patient with narcolepsy whose repeated self-injury caused traumatic eyeball perforation. METHODS: A 26-year-old male with narcolepsy injured himself, which resulted in eyeball perforation in his both eyes. We diagnosed him as traumatic corneal laceration, traumatic cataract, and vitreous opacity due to lens material in vitreous in both eyes. RESULTS: After improvement of narcoleptic symptom and healing of corneal perforation, we performed cataract extraction and pars plana vitrectomy under local anesthesia. During operation, we found preretinal gliosis at superior portion of optic disc and subretinal hemorrhage in the right eye. We observed successful improvement in visual acuity through intraocular lens implantation.