Medically reviewed by Dr. Michael Nodland, OD · Updated August 2026
Call (561) 799-3932 now. For an urgent eye problem, phone rather than booking online — it gets you triaged faster.
Call us now: (561) 799-3932
If you have an eye injury, sudden vision change, or a painful red eye, call rather than booking online. Eye emergencies are handled differently from routine appointments and need a different kind of visit — a longer slot, different equipment, and a medical rather than a vision-plan claim.
Monday–Friday 10am–6pm. The optical is open Saturday 9am–2pm, but Dr. Nodland does not hold regular Saturday exam hours. Outside weekday hours, read “when to go to an emergency room” below and act on it.
Go to an emergency room or call 911 instead if:
Some things need a hospital, not an optometrist — and this applies at any hour, on any day, including when we are open. Go straight to an ER if any of these apply:
- Sudden vision loss with any stroke symptoms — face drooping, weakness on one side, slurred speech, severe sudden headache. Call 911. This is a medical emergency, not an eye appointment.
- Sudden loss of vision in one eye, when we are closed. Do not wait for us to open. During office hours, call (561) 799-3932 — Dr. Nodland will see you the same day.
- A curtain, shadow or dark area moving across your vision, or a sudden shower of new floaters with flashing lights. This can be a retinal detachment. If we are open, call us immediately. If we are closed, go to an ER — do not wait for the next business day.
- A chemical has splashed in your eye. Start flushing the eye with clean water or saline immediately and keep flushing for at least 15 minutes. Have someone else call 911 or drive you while you flush — do not stop flushing to make the call yourself.
- Something has penetrated or is embedded in the eye. Do not attempt to remove it. Do not press on the eye, and do not pad it — tape the bottom half of a paper or foam cup over the eye if you can, so nothing touches it, and go.
- Sudden double vision, or a drooping eyelid with an enlarged pupil. This combination can signal a problem with the nerves that move the eye and needs urgent medical assessment, not an eye appointment.
- A serious blow to the eye or face, particularly with blood visible inside the eye itself, or if you cannot move the eye normally.
- Severe eye pain with nausea or vomiting, or a fixed, enlarged pupil with intense pain.
- Any significant head injury.
- A painful red eye in a contact lens wearer, when we are closed. Take the lens out, keep it, and go. Pain in a lens wearer can be a corneal infection, and those can damage sight within a day or two.
We would always rather you went to an ER unnecessarily than waited to be seen here.
Sudden loss of vision, even without pain
Call (561) 799-3932 immediately. Sudden loss of vision in one eye is an emergency whether or not it hurts, and Dr. Nodland will see you the same day during office hours. Do not wait to see whether it improves overnight.
Outside office hours, go to an emergency room. Do not wait for us to open.
✅ Reviewed and approved by Dr. Michael Nodland, OD. The routing of sudden painless vision loss to a same-day office visit during business hours, rather than to an emergency room, is his clinical decision, taken with the reasoning set out in the build notes.
What counts as an eye emergency we can see?
An eye emergency is any sudden problem affecting the health of your eye rather than the strength of your prescription. These are the ones we see most often, and they’re the ones worth calling about straight away rather than waiting for a routine appointment slot:
- Red, painful eye — infection, inflammation or a reaction
- Something in your eye that you can’t flush out — dust, metal, a wood splinter
- A scratch on the surface of the eye — often from a fingernail, a branch or a contact lens
- Sudden flashes of light, or a shower of new floaters — these need looking at promptly
- A curtain or shadow across part of your vision — call immediately
- Sudden blurred vision in one eye
- Contact lens pain — a lens stuck, or pain that continues after removing one
- Light sensitivity with pain
- Discharge, crusting or swelling of the eye or lid
- Welding or sunlamp burn — a gritty, painful eye some hours after exposure
If you’re reading this trying to decide whether it’s worth calling: call. Working out whether something is urgent is our job, not yours, and it costs nothing to ask.
Why not just go to urgent care?
An optometrist has equipment for examining the eye that a general urgent care clinic doesn’t — it is the difference between a doctor who looks at eyes all day and one who sees the full range of everything else. The main one is a slit lamp — a microscope for looking at the surface and interior structures of the eye under magnification, which is how a scratch, an embedded foreign body, or inflammation inside the eye is actually diagnosed.
Urgent care is very good at many things. Eyes usually aren’t one of them, and being sent on afterwards costs you a day.
Is emergency eye care covered by insurance?
Emergency and urgent eye visits are billed to your medical insurance, not your vision plan. Vision plans cover routine exams and eyewear; anything involving a diagnosis or treatment is a medical claim, under your usual medical copay or deductible.
Eye Expressions accepts Medicare, VSP, EyeMed, Humana, Aetna, Anthem, Blue View Vision, MetLife, Superior Vision, Davis Vision and Advantica.
Plan networks vary — being covered by a carrier is not the same as your specific plan being one we are contracted with. Call (561) 799-3932 with your card and we will check. For an urgent problem, do not let the insurance question delay the call: come in and we will sort the billing out. More on how vision plans and medical insurance differ.
Are flashes and floaters serious?
Sometimes, and it isn’t possible to tell without an examination. Floaters — small specks or threads drifting across your vision — are extremely common and usually harmless, especially if you’ve had the same ones for years.
What matters is change. A sudden increase in floaters, new flashes of light, or a shadow moving in from the edge of your vision can indicate a retinal tear or detachment, and that is time-sensitive. Those symptoms should be examined promptly rather than watched over a weekend.
For flashes and floaters the question is what is happening at the very edges of the retina, so this is one of the visits where the imaging earns its keep. Eye Expressions uses optomap ultra-widefield retinal imaging, which for most patients shows the retinal periphery without dilating drops — though for a suspected tear or detachment, Dr. Nodland may well dilate anyway to look further still.
Where should I go — here, or a hospital?
| What’s happening | Where to go | What to do first |
|---|---|---|
| Chemical splash in the eye | Emergency room | Flush with clean water or saline for at least 15 minutes. Have someone else call 911 or drive |
| Something has penetrated the eye | Emergency room | Don’t remove it, don’t press, don’t pad it. Shield the eye with a cup taped over it |
| Sudden vision loss in one eye | Call us now if we’re open — (561) 799-3932; ER if we’re closed | Move either way, now. Painless loss counts. Don’t wait to see if it improves |
| Vision loss with stroke signs | Call 911 | Face droop, one-sided weakness, slurred speech, sudden severe headache |
| Curtain or shadow across vision | Call us if we’re open; ER if we’re closed | Don’t wait for the next business day |
| Flashes and a new shower of floaters | Call us if we’re open; ER if we’re closed | Note when it started |
| Red, painful eye | Call us — (561) 799-3932 | If you wear contact lenses, take them out and keep them. If we’re closed, go to an ER |
| Something in the eye you can’t flush out | Call us — (561) 799-3932 | Don’t rub. Blink, try saline. If it won’t move, leave it |
| A scratch on the eye | Call us — (561) 799-3932 | No drops or ointment unless a doctor told you to |
| A blow to the eye | ER if there’s blood in the eye or you can’t move it normally; otherwise call us | Don’t press on it. Cold compress on the surrounding area is fine |
| Welding or sunlamp burn | Call us — (561) 799-3932 | Stay out of bright light |
If your situation isn’t on this list and you’re weighing it up, call. Working out whether something is urgent is our job, not yours.
Frequently asked questions
Can I be seen today? Usually, yes. Almost all urgent red eyes are seen the same day, provided you call while Dr. Nodland is still in the office. Call early rather than late — (561) 799-3932.
What does an urgent visit cost? An emergency visit costs the same as a routine eye exam — $179 — so you are not charged more for needing to be seen urgently. Any prescriptions you need can be called in to your pharmacy, and follow-up for that problem is included. If you have insurance, we will check your benefits and tell you what you owe.
It’s the weekend. What do I do? For an urgent eye problem outside weekday hours, go to an emergency room. Dr. Nodland keeps no regular Saturday exam hours, and the online scheduler does not offer Saturday, so a Saturday exam has to be arranged by phone in advance — which is no use to you today. The optical trades 9am–2pm on Saturday, but that is for frames, collections and adjustments, not for an eye problem. Do not wait until Monday for sudden vision loss, a curtain or shadow across your vision, a new shower of floaters with flashes, an eye injury, severe eye pain, or a painful red eye if you wear contact lenses. All of those are time-sensitive. If you are unsure whether what you have can wait, treat it as though it cannot.
Do I need an appointment? Walk-ins are accepted, but call first if you can. Scheduled patients are seen almost always on time, so a walk-in may have to wait behind them — and for an urgent problem a phone call lets us have the right room ready when you arrive.
I wear contact lenses and my eye hurts. How urgent is that? Treat it as urgent. Take the lens out and call. Pain in a contact lens wearer can indicate a corneal infection, which can progress quickly and needs prompt treatment.
Book or call
Call (561) 799-3932. For anything urgent, phone rather than booking online — it gets you triaged faster.
Eye Expressions · 7100 Fairway Drive, Suite 39, Palm Beach Gardens, FL 33418 — on Fairway Drive just off PGA Boulevard, with parking at the door. Monday–Friday 10am–6pm. The optical is open Saturday 9am–2pm, but Dr. Nodland does not hold regular Saturday exam hours and the online scheduler does not offer Saturday; a Saturday exam has to be requested by phone.