You only got two eyes....

kaiser715

kaiser715

Doing hard time
Joined
Jun 1, 2006
Location
7, Pocket, NC
...so take care of them.

I had cataract surgery back in May. Natural lenses removed, artificial lenses inserted. Was extremely nearsighted, like 20/500 in both eyes. After surgery, 20/20 in right eye, and 20/70 in left (intentional monovision, one focuses at distance, the other at reading distance, your brain learns which to use when).

Last Saturday night, I got punched in the right eye. (Cool story starts with "you should see the other guy"....true story is my dog did it while we were roughhousing.) That developed into a torn retina, with detachment. Not good. Was slowly loosing vision in that eye.

Yesterday, had emergency surgery at Carolina Eye in Pinehurst. Put a permanent band around the eye to squish it around the circumference, drained all the fluid and floaters out of the eye, lasered the tear, stitched up the hole they made to do all this (yes, I have stitches in my eyeball), pics after bandages are off, and inflated it with inert gas.

I'll have low to no vision in that eye until the gas slowly dissipates and is refilled with natural fluid, over several weeks or months possibly. After that, really don't know...will definitely be nearsighted in that eye due to the band they put on. No more 20/20.

Anyway, take care of your eyes, you can't grow new ones. (yet)
 
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ouch....I got metal in my eye and they removed it with a needle , sounds bad? Had to go back 2 days later and they used a drimmel tool with a tiny brush to clean up the rust. As the doctor approached me with the needle I said "you've got a lot of people in your waiting area , I'd hate to scream and scare everyone." Two years later I had the same thing happen again...I'm pretty much a safety glasses dork now. Took me a couple of times to get it.
 
This is what it looks like after docs take your eyeball out, play a round of ping-pong with it, and stick it back in. At least that's what it feels like.

asanlee.smugmug.com_photos_i_DvjjGCN_0_O_i_DvjjGCN.jpg
 
A friend in Oregon, a welder & pipe fitter by trade, was pouring molten aluminum into a mold when it exploded back in his face. It literally burned off a whole layer of his eyeball. He had second and third degree burns and, four years later and even after a corneal transplant, only sees some light through his right eye. Of course he was wearing glasses.

So be the dork in the face shield.
 
Face Shield Dorks Unite!...

It sounds like you received good care. Prayers for a fully complete and speedy recovery.

I've had too many times where I flushed out my eye from a partical or the high velocity projectile hit me somewhere somewhere else.

This make me want to go all out on safety for my upcoming axle grind fest.
 
Hope it heals fast for you! I inherited nearsightedness, & cornea problems. In my Grandmother, & Mother, the went through full cornea transplants, with about 4-6 months recovery. I had my first eye done in Feb. 06, & the other, in Nov.06. Now Surgeons can do a "partial" transplant, & you have some vision the same day. Full recovery/healing, about 2-3 months! For whatever reason, my first one failed/rejected, last year. I had it redone, last November. Took 4 months to stabilize, for new prescription [Not 20-20] & just within the past month, has the Irritation, stopped! Something about doing it a second time, is Much worse!
 
Eye hurts so can't sleep, percosets not touching it, so figured to check in to NC4x4...thanks for the comments and encouragement.

Sounds like many of you have gotten the message already to wear eye protection in the shop. I have been reading up quite a bit on peoples experiences with retinal detachment...and many, many of them are caused by contact injuries when playing sports...hit in eye with ball, elbow, etc...something to think about.

There are several risk factors that increase your chances of a retinal detachment....I hit 4 of them (extremely nearsighted, over 50, recent cataract surgery, and recent eye injury). But, an eye injury of any sort leads the pack.
 
rodney eppes said:
BTW, Kaiser, be sure to ask the Doc., about "Yag" surgery, in about 6 months. Look it up, it's Great, low cost, & 5 minutes!
Click to expand...

Yep, about 80% of cataract surgeries have to have the followup YAG. For those that haven't been thru this, in very simple terms it is a laser treatment that "wipes the window clean" of a film that grows over. Also, one eye I have some nighttime glare at about 30degrees from horizontal...doc says those are just polishing marks, and when they do the YAG, they'll clear up.
 
I thought my vision was bad at 20/400. Getting lasik next year I hope.

Had 2 really bad eye infections from eye doc wanting to change brands of contacts. First one was worse felt like someone was rubbing sand paper on my eye ball. Bad thing was I was 8 hours from home driving.
 
Update....This past Monday was the 3-week mark. Had a followup appointment set for today (Tuesday 22nd).

Started having trouble on Saturday night, though....white of my eye got blood-red, and got another curtain coming across my field of vision, on the extreme edge. Figured it had re-detached. Called in to Carolina Eye, told to be there first thing Monday morning. I was expecting the worse, another detachment. Got a full checkup...pics and all...looked over by the same surgeon that did the repair. All is normal. But, it appears I have lost some peripheral vision, on the bottom and right side....a "normal" side effect of the scleral buckle. Might be permanent, might regain, will just have to wait and see. It's annoying as hell right now...hopefully my brain will learn to ignore that area if it doesn't return to normal.

I did measure 20/30 in that eye on the refraction. Not the 20/20 I had, but close enough. Vision is still likely to change in that eye, up or down, over the next few months.
 
bad, Bad, BAD news....

Everything has been going great after repairing my detached retina. Vision finally stabilized at 20/25 in the right eye. Good enough for me.

A couple of days ago, I noticed that that eye was blurry. Went to eye doc yesterday, and got sent over to my previous retina specialist today. I got something called preretinal fibrosis, or macular pucker. Basically, a layer of repair cells has grown a membrane over the retina. That membrane -- kinda like a piece of cellophane -- causes the reduced vision, and also pulls and wrinkles the macula, creating distortion. This is one of the possible side-effects of the previous surgery.

Anyway....scheduled again for another eye surgery in a couple of weeks. He will go in, use basically a tiny set of tweezers, pick up the edge, and peel it off (kinda like a good piece of sunburnt skin peeling off).

Lots of articles on it....this one here explains it better than many:

Macular Pucker Surgery - Retina Specialist | Fairfax, Virginia | Retinal Diseases

Hey, I'm still better off than a lot of people!
 
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