Pickleball eye injuries and eye protection
How common are pickleball eye injuries, and does eye protection help?
By Pickleball Safety editors · Published October 4, 2026 · Last reviewed October 4, 2026
How often it happens
Pickleball eye injuries are climbing. A 2025 study in JAMA Ophthalmology estimated that US emergency departments treated 3,112 of them from 2005 to 2024, and 1,262 of those came in 2024 alone. Between 2021 and 2024 the count grew by about 405 cases a year [1].
We ran the same federal data ourselves. Our estimate is about 2,325 eyeball injuries from 2011 to 2025 (95% confidence interval 1,252 to 3,397) [2]. Why lower? We only counted cases where the eyeball itself was coded as the injured part, so anything logged to the face or eye area, including some orbital fractures, isn't in our number. You can explore it on the data dashboard.
Who gets hurt and how
Players 50 and up had more eye injuries than younger players did [1]. The American Academy of Ophthalmology singles out people 65 and older as especially vulnerable. It also names less experienced players in mixed-skill games, and anyone who is nearsighted or has had eye surgery [3].
Some players were hit straight on by the ball. Others caught a paddle, or hurt an eye in a fall [1]. The ball's size makes things worse: a pickleball is small enough to fit into the eye socket and strike the eye itself [3].
Common injuries
Eye doctors see scratches on the eye's surface (corneal abrasion), damage to the outer layers of the retina known as Berlin's edema, and retinal tears or detachment [3]. The severe cases in the ER study included retinal detachment, broken eye sockets (orbital fractures), injury to the eyeball, and bleeding inside the front of the eye, which doctors call hyphema [1].
Eye protection
Nobody makes you wear eye protection in pickleball, at any level of play [1]. The study's authors want that to change, and call for standard eye protection guidelines [1].
Buying protective eyewear? Check the label for ASTM F3164. It's the standard for racket sport eye protectors, and its 2024 revision added tests for pickleball [4].
Your everyday glasses aren't a substitute. They don't give proper protection, and a shattered lens can make an injury worse [5]. Still, if they're all you have, the Academy says sunglasses or regular glasses beat nothing [3].
Warning signs
If you're hit in the eye, see an ophthalmologist right away if your vision changes or drops, or if you have a lot of pain, bleeding or bruising [3].
Sources
- Pickleball-related ocular injuries among patients presenting to emergency departmentsLacher CR, et al. JAMA Ophthalmology, 2025The spelling variants in our search terms, and published eye injury estimates.
- National Electronic Injury Surveillance System (NEISS) dataU.S. Consumer Product Safety CommissionThe case records behind every injury estimate on this site.
- Wear eye protection when playing pickleballAmerican Academy of Ophthalmology, 2026Pickleball eye injury types, who is most at risk, and when to see an ophthalmologist.
- F3164-24 Standard specification for eye protectors for racket sports (racquetball, squash, tennis, pickleball)ASTM International, 2024The eye protector standard that covers pickleball.
- Sports eye safetyAmerican Academy of Ophthalmology, 2025Why everyday glasses are not sports eye protection.