Pain medicine : the official journal of the American Academy of Pain Medicine
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Visual impairment apparently is a rare but significant complication following epidural fluid injection and epiduroscopy. We report a review of cases reported in the literature with the aim of gaining an understanding of how the complication occurs as well as how to avoid it. ⋯ Retinal hemorrhage following epidural fluid injections/epiduroscopy apparently is due to an increase in cerebrospinal fluid pressure proportional to the rate and the amount of fluid injected. A sudden increase in epidural pressure is transmitted into the subarachnoid space to the optic nerve sheath, compressing the optic nerve and its vasculature. The vasculature compression ruptures retinal blood vessels.