A man in his 20s in Edinburgh applied a massage gun directly to his eyeballs to relieve fatigue, resulting in multiple retinal tears, widespread retinal bruising, and retinal dialysis in his right eye, plus six full-thickness retinal rips in his left eye. He presented at an eye treatment center after six days of increasing floaters and flashing lights. Ophthalmologists Niamh O'Connell and Ashraf Khan documented the case in a BMJ Case Report.
The damage was severe enough to mimic injuries typically caused by significant blunt trauma. The patient had no prior eye conditions beyond mild near-sightedness, no family history of eye disorders, and reported no head or eye injuries, making the massage gun the only plausible cause.
The full BMJ case report is worth reading for the clinical detail on how percussive force translates to retinal destruction, and what the treatment pathway looked like after the damage was found. The mechanism matters beyond this one case.
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