hi,
I’m new to this forum and have been trying to add comments and a couple of questions. Assuming the admins ok this post I have a question: anyone else had an operation to re-attach a retina? I had one a couple of weeks ago and would be grateful for shared experiences and recommendations. Thanks
I answered here
Hi Strathmore, welcome to our forum, hope your eye makes a full recovery.
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Hi. Thankfully, no I haven’t.
However, a few years ago I did have an operation to correct vitreous detachment (much less serious than retinal detachment of course). Nevertheless, I was grateful for it being done because had it been left it could have developed into a retinal detachment.
You will know better than I, but I understood that retinal detachment can be corrected by firing a laser into the eye and ‘spot welding’ the retina back in place. To be honest, I think I’d have preferred that as my treatment involved poking things into the eye (under local anaesthetic!) and sucking out part of the vitreous and then replacing it with another liquid and (in my case) some gas as well. Consequently, I spent several days observing a bubble in the vision of that eye which eventually dispersed itself.
I don’t know about others, but I’d be very interested to hear of your experiences.
You asked for it - this post contains some gruesome elements!
Thanks for your post, and I am happy to share. I had a fall 4 weeks ago - nasty, broken wrist, broken nose and a cut above my eye because I was wearing glasses. All very ouch but all very healable - after 10 days my stitches were out and the cut was healed, plus my nose healed quickly. The wrist will take longer.
As my face was healing I noticed a blurred / hazy corner of my eye. At very first I thought my broken nose was much much larger than before. But within days this had become half my vision - completely opaque. I now know that I should have heeded other warning signs such as a lot of dark ‘floaters’ moving across my vision. But it had become so bad that I dropped my doctors appointment for the following week and went straight to A&E on Friday afternoon. Was seen very quickly, photos of the eye retina taken, and the doctor bluntly said - you are going to surgery first thing Monday, or you lose your eye. I like people to be straight with me … but really? Yes, very really.
Monday was into the big hospital, morning for checks and confirmed for surgery early afternoon. The junior doctor, as he told me this, also mentioned local anesthetic. Which required a couple of deep breathes. But, he says, you will not see anything, so no problem.
Which was half right. I did not see anything. I heard and felt everything. The procedure was inserting a gas bubble against the retina to press it back in place. (Look away now if squeamish) and this involves injecting a local anesthetic into the eye ball and then popping the eye out. The pain, as such, is the pressure of pushing down on my head to give leverage to get the eye out. I was very glad that my nose and cut were healed. Other than that, no pain at all. They do the procedure, clean it all out, and pop the (by now bruised) eye back in. All done within an hour.
Then rest and look down (so the gas bubble adheres in the right place) for a couple of hours. Then discharged. Went back 10 days later and the doc says she is happy so far, so all good.
Recovery is a bit slow as the eye is bruised and sensitive to movement and bright light. But you know, could be a lot worse.
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Very interesting.
Although it is true that they can sometimes use the laser spot-welding procedure, it seems that you had a more direct approach.
It sounds like they also did a vitrectomy into the bargain, as that would explain the bubble.
I suppose that I was rather more fortunate than you, as I didn’t have to have my eye popped out!
I’m sure you’ll be OK now though, and one further advantage is that they now know your situation so, should anything else go wrong in future, they’ll know exactly what to do. The warning I was given was to just watch out for a shadow like a curtain moving across your field of vision. As you know, of course, that would be an emergency situation.
Gawd that sounds awful
I noticed my detached retina at work when I started seeing a completely black floaty shape occasionally appear at the bottom of my vision, it came and went floating into view then disappearing.
You have to remember that the eye sees upside down so what I was actually seeing was the top lining of the eye hanging down in front of the macular.
After work that day I went to Wollongong Hospital where eventually they got an eye specialist who immediately diagnosed the problem. I then had every training doctor in the hospital come to have a look while they booked me into Sydney Eye Hospital where I was driven that evening.
The following morning they cut off my eye lashes, drained the eye and lasered the lining of the eye back in place (basically it creates scar tissue that holds it all together.) I was conscious during the procedure but didn’t care (wonderful drugs) and the eye was not removed.
I was told that if the repair is not done straight way the lining rips off completely taking the macular with it and there is no coming back from that, you are blind in that eye. It happened to John Mortimer he suddenly went blind in one eye - it was in his autobiography.
This was a couple of decades ago (might even be three decades) and my optician checks it very visit - so far so good.