What's new

I Have a Torn Retina (1 Viewer)

Johnny Angell

Played With Dinosaurs Member
Senior HTF Member
Deceased Member
Joined
Dec 13, 1998
Messages
14,905
Location
Central Arkansas
Real Name
Johnny Angell
I had my every other year eye exam today. I have a cataract beginning in each eye and she discovered a torn retina in my left eye.

It is a small tear and I have an appointment with a specialist scheduled for Friday. He will most likely to a laser procedure to correct the problem at that time. My eye doctor said we caught it earlier before it had a chance to get bigger.

My doctor told me that as we age the fluid in the eye may separate, at least partially from the retina, and the fluid may have caused the tear. It's a small tear and she's not concerned. The procedure has a good success rate.

I was due for an exam but would have had one anyway because I had noticed floaters in my eye, more than I've ever had before. I'm now scheduled for another routine exam in one year. BTW, the floaters have significantly decreased.

I guess this is Mother Nature telling me "I designed you guys to kick the bucket at 50 or so. You shoulda died 14 years ago. Don't be surprised if you have trouble with parts."

My eye doctor also said it was typical to see cataracts develop in my eye. There's no needed action right now for them.
 

Johnny Angell

Played With Dinosaurs Member
Senior HTF Member
Deceased Member
Joined
Dec 13, 1998
Messages
14,905
Location
Central Arkansas
Real Name
Johnny Angell
Ok, here is my laser experience. Much of the time was spent waiting. I'd say 90% of the time (about 1 1/2 hours) was waiting. They put me in a room right away and did the glaucoma test on me (even though my ophthalmologist had already done it a couple days ago).
This was followed by drops in my eyes to dilate them. They weren't dilated enough so they did the drops 2 more times. Then I waited and waited.
Finally the doctor arrives. He proceeds to use some sort of device to move my eye around and immobilize it. I never got a good look at this because you don't have much vision when your eye is being manipulated.
He told me I had two tears and that they should be treated with the laser procedure. He said the laser would "tack" down the tears and prevent further separation of the retina.
The procedure consists of even more heavy-duty manipulation of my eye. When the laser would fire, it would be several pulses in rapid succession. At first, the only discomfort was the manipulation of my eye. Towards the end of the lasering process, it began to hurt also. How bad was it? Enough to require that I "grit and bare it". He could tell it hurt because he would tell me "almost done" a couple of times.
It was a good thing my wife came with me. The dilation process lasts longer than at an ophthalmologist, combined with the manipulation of my eye, and the laser, it would not have been wise for me to drive. I was much more sensitive to light than after a session with my ophthalmologist.
I'd say a couple of hours after the session, my eye was very sore and the pain remained for a couple of hours. I attribute this not to the laser (though I don't know for sure) but the the manipulation of my eye. Think of someone taking your eye out, rolling and kneading it between two fingers and putting it back in. It's going to be sore.
The laser produced a colorful light show in my eye and this increased as the process continued. Unfortunately, the discomfort level was always high enough to prevent any enjoyment of it. I'd rather have been inhaling/img/vbsmilies/htf/smile.gif
 

Ockeghem

Ockeghem
Senior HTF Member
Deceased Member
Joined
Feb 1, 2007
Messages
9,417
Real Name
Scott D. Atwell
Johnny,
My mother-in-law had surgery done on her retina many years ago. Reading your posts, it seems that the technology has come quite a ways since then. I wish you the best with this. (I wish I could send Bones to you -- I'm sure it would be a simple procedure for him. /img/vbsmilies/htf/wink.gif )
 

Johnny Angell

Played With Dinosaurs Member
Senior HTF Member
Deceased Member
Joined
Dec 13, 1998
Messages
14,905
Location
Central Arkansas
Real Name
Johnny Angell
This is not surgery, for which I'm grateful. If it was a detached retina, then we're talking surgery. Yes, Dr. McCoy would find the current procedure "barbaric."/img/vbsmilies/htf/laugh.gif
As I type this in, I'm aware of a slight soreness in the eye, but that's all.
 

Ockeghem

Ockeghem
Senior HTF Member
Deceased Member
Joined
Feb 1, 2007
Messages
9,417
Real Name
Scott D. Atwell
Originally Posted by Johnny Angell /forum/thread/299208/i-have-a-torn-retina#post_3675034
As I type this in, I'm aware of a slight soreness in the eye, but that's all.
Johnny,
I think I know why there might be some soreness.
It's from watching your films of all of those Celtics, Patriots, and Red Sox championship parades repeatedly. You've really gotta stop doing that. /img/vbsmilies/htf/smiley_wink.gif
 

Johnny Angell

Played With Dinosaurs Member
Senior HTF Member
Deceased Member
Joined
Dec 13, 1998
Messages
14,905
Location
Central Arkansas
Real Name
Johnny Angell
Originally Posted by Ockeghem /forum/thread/299208/i-have-a-torn-retina#post_3675072
Johnny,
I think I know why there might be some soreness.
It's from watching your films of all of those Celtics, Patriots, and Red Sox championship parades repeatedly. You've really gotta stop doing that. /img/vbsmilies/htf/smiley_wink.gif
Nah. As a fan of San Diego teams, my "loser" muscle has had plenty of workouts, so I've kept it in shape. It doesn't get sore from overuse./img/vbsmilies/htf/laugh.gif
 

Johnny Angell

Played With Dinosaurs Member
Senior HTF Member
Deceased Member
Joined
Dec 13, 1998
Messages
14,905
Location
Central Arkansas
Real Name
Johnny Angell
Since I've mentioned my cataracts in this thread, I thought I'd reuse it to discuss them. The torn retina has not reoccurred but the cataracts remain.

Lately I've noticed upon waking up in the morning it takes me longer to get my full vision going. I don't know quite how to describe it. A little rubbing of the eyes to get up to speed. I think my vision is ok the rest of the time, but when something creeps up on you, you get used to it bit by bit, and it may be hard to notice.

I've got my yearly vision exam this Thursday. I've been wondering if this is the year she'll say it's time to do something about them?

Has anyone in the forum had cataract surgery? How did it go for you? Good results? Any side effects or problems? What is the experience like?

When she first said it was in the cards for me someday, I asked her how do you keep the eye stable enough to do precision surgery on it? I know I'll be awake and there's local anesthesia involved, but I can't imagine I can keep my eye still enough. She said the will be stable, don't worry about that.

This statement in Wikipedia leads me to believe she won't recommend the surgery this time:
Several recent evaluations found that surgery can only meet expectations when there is significant functional impairment from poor vision prior to surgery.
This leads me to believe that I've got to have vision impairment that I am very aware of, before the surgery can be done.

Wikipedia also goes on to say that the replacement lens is permanent and single vision. There are near and distance vision lenses, but these don't seem to work as well.

This leaves me to wonder with the single lenses, is distance or near vision the better choice. Also, does permanent mean lifetime?
 

Afiger

Agent
Joined
May 23, 2013
Messages
43
Real Name
Daniel
Scary! I've had bad vision since I was 8, so I'm constantly feeling worried about the state of my eyes. I recently had a friend undergo this procedure and she was very pleased with the results, but looked pretty banged up for several day. Makes me worry, even at 26 what could go wrong with my eyes. I never imagined it would hurt though.
 

Stan

Senior HTF Member
Joined
May 18, 1999
Messages
5,177
Slightly off-topic, but had a torn cornea about 20 years ago (a little boy was tossing pine cones and I turned at just the exact moment that one scraped my left eye), absolute agony. Ended up in an ER where they thankfully put some numbing drops in and instantly the pain went away.

Eye doctor scanned everything and my cornea looked like a spider web. Took literally six, maybe seven years to heal. As the wound healed, it got better and smaller, but would dry out overnight. I could actually feel it rip open again in the morning. Tried drops, purified Vaseline, etc. and thought it was fixed, but six months later I could feel it open up again.

Final solution, sounds horrible, but was to take a tiny needle and he poked about 50 holes in my cornea. That would give the cornea more surface area and something to "grab" onto the eye. That was the problem, because the cornea wasn't adhering to the eye itself. It was a last resort, if it hadn't worked it would have been surgery. Thankfully it finally took, and I actually have nearly perfect vision in that eye.
 

Johnny Angell

Played With Dinosaurs Member
Senior HTF Member
Deceased Member
Joined
Dec 13, 1998
Messages
14,905
Location
Central Arkansas
Real Name
Johnny Angell
I forgot to follow up and mention that my doctor said the cataracts were early stage and she couldn't predict how long before surgery would be required.
 

Users who are viewing this thread

Forum statistics

Threads
356,814
Messages
5,123,641
Members
144,184
Latest member
H-508
Recent bookmarks
0
Top