Everything is still hunky dory here 
Good luck with your surgery.
Well, I’m back from the procedure. I was disappointed in the sedation; it didn’t seem to have any effect at all. But the local anaesthesia worked fine, and the whole thing was over pretty quickly. Right now the pupil is still very dilated, so vision out of the treated eye is mostly useless. Also I do have the feeling that there’s a bit of dust or something that needs to be gotten out of my eye, which they tell me is an expected thing and that I must not under any circumstances rub my eye.
Are you saying that you walked of the med center with your “new” eye uncovered, on the same day as the surgery?
Yes, with my usual glasses and sunglasses over them for the brightness and glare. They gave me a tape and a clear plastic shield to put over the eye when sleeping, so as not to rub it, but said nothing else was necessary except to be careful not to touch the eye. Also I am not to engage in strenuous physical activity or get the eye wet for a week.
It was annoying to try to do anything with one functional and one non-functional eye. Sort of like when I lost half of my glasses in the surf while on vacation in September, which is another story entirely.
My husband rigged up an eye patch for me so that I don’t have to wear the sunglasses indoors and I don’t have to voluntarily keep that eye closed. Also we figured a better method than tape to keep the shield in place for sleep.
I am definitely going to mention to the Dr. tomorrow at my followup that the surgery center’s solution was less than optimal IMHO.
I think that’s pretty unusual. My eye was patched, off the top of my head I don’t recall if it was 24 or 48 hours, to give it a chance to do a bit of healing. I came back in a day or two, they took off the patch and told me I could drive home if I wanted to! I had use like 3 different kinds of eye drops for a couple of weeks after that, IIRC.
24 hrs black patch for me…
A few minor questions:
(1) Those of you who said the surgery was painless: Was there any post-op pain or soreness? Once the anasthetic wore off, was the eye or the incision site sore for a while?
(2) The eyedrops: What was in those? Was there an antibiotic in the eyedrops? If so, what was it?
(3) Can you put the drops in your eye yourself, or do you need to get someone else to do it for you? Especially, adhemar, since you wrote that you live alone and don’t have any family nearby. Did you do your own eyedrops?
(4) How soon were you allowed to drive afterwards? Did you have to NOT drive for the rest of the day? And if so, why? I’m thinking of the way they do colonoscopies at my local hospital: With “twilight” anasthetic, and they require you to have a driver bring you to the hospital, and stay there for the whole duration of the procedure, and take you home. Then you aren’t supposed to drive for the rest of the day. This because you’re supposedly somewhat addled by the anasthetic for the rest of the day. Is there some similar rule (for a similar reason) for eye surgery?
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I had a bit of a headache afterwards, and slept for half the day.
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Some people can do their own eyedrops. I can’t so had my wife do them for me.
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Can drive in 24 hours after the surgery, right after the followup appt and having the patch removed. As to why - well you have an opaque eye patch on your eye, and the twilight anaesthetic.
- Like Terr, I had a headache and slept for a good chunk of the day. A really bad headache, or nausea, are signs of trouble, and they want to to call in if you have either. A fairly common post-op problem can cause these – a buildup of fluid pressure within the eye in the first couple of days. This happened in one of my eyes. The solution sounds pretty gruesome but is very simple. You go back in (just to the doc’s office, not to a surgery) and they poke a little hole in your eye to let the fluid out. It takes about 30 seconds,
2 & 3. IIRC, at least one was an antibiotic, and I think another was a steroid to speed the healing. Putting them in myself was no problem.
- You usually have the 2 eyes done several weeks apart. If your cataracts are bad enough that you had to stop driving before the surgery, then you certainly can’t drive after the first because your newly good eye will be patched. And also as Terr said, they don’t want you driving home after either surgery.
Or in my case, the third surgery too. I had a pretty unusual complication after the second surgery – the day after the surgery the lens slipped out of place within my eye. It wasn’t painful, but but my vision got blurry for several minutes and I knew something was weird, so I called the doc. He had me come in and took a look, and had me back in surgery that evening. Basically, he put the lens back in place and put in a single stitch to hold it there.
[quote=“Senegoid, post:87, topic:636076”]
A few minor questions:
(1) Those of you who said the surgery was painless: Was there any post-op pain or soreness? Once the anasthetic wore off, was the eye or the incision site sore for a while?
My surgery was not painless but the pain was mild or at least bearable, less than I have at the dentist. The anesthesia wore off pretty quickly as I was able to sit up and move to the tranport table to go back to my “room” from the OR. Afterwards I had a lot of pressure around my eye sort of like an incipiant sinus headache. I took tylenol and slept a lot. I will admit that I felt kind of cranky that day as well possibly the aftermath of stress and surgery.
(2) The eyedrops: What was in those? Was there an antibiotic in the eyedrops? If so, what was it? I was on a number of eyedrops for several weeks before and after the surgeries. At the time of the surgery they put in several deiffernt eyedrops. I am sure some of it was antibacterial. I was told a day or so afterwards that I could get otc eyedrops with no preservatives to put in my eyes when they felt irritated. I work in a warehouse and the air movment dried my eyes pretty quickly and made them red and uncomfortable. I still use these.
(3) Can you put the drops in your eye yourself, or do you need to get someone else to do it for you? Especially, adhemar, since you wrote that you live alone and don’t have any family nearby. Did you do your own eyedrops?
I do my own eyedrops, I will confess I have trouble putting drops in my eyes so I rest the dropper in the corner of my eye and tilt my head to the side so gravity helps the drops go into my eyes.
(4) How soon were you allowed to drive afterwards? Did you have to NOT drive for the rest of the day? And if so, why? I’m thinking of the way they do colonoscopies at my local hospital: With “twilight” anasthetic, and they require you to have a driver bring you to the hospital, and stay there for the whole duration of the procedure, and take you home. Then you aren’t supposed to drive for the rest of the day. This because you’re supposedly somewhat addled by the anasthetic for the rest of the day. Is there some similar rule (for a similar reason) for eye surgery?
They did not want me to drive myself home from the surgery and suggested that I not drive until I could see. my first surgery I got up after several hours and drove myself to get something to eat and then drove to the doctors the next day. With my second surgery my parents insisted on driving me everywhere the first day and on the second day followed me as i drove to the doctors office they then headed back to where they live.
I was able to see almost immediately out of the eye operated on, we went to breakfast after the surgeries and by the time I got home (several hours after the operation) I was able to read with that eye. which is good becasue I couldn’t wear my glasses or contacts between the two surgeries. they operated on my worse eye first so my vision was improved dramatically although the shifts in dominance was kind of groovy. I did not have patches or anything like that leaving the office although I did wear sunglasses and I had a little eye sheild for when I slept.
I am going back for the laser removal of scar tissue in the next few weeks.
One suggestion I have it to buy you a little magnifying glass to keep with you (if you get the distance correcting lenses) it is kind of weird to not be able to see up close at all and at times I need stonger reading glasses to read really fine print or in dim light.
Thanks for the answers to my questions, all three of you.
If the eyedrops had an antibiotic mixed in, do you know what it was? I think Cipro is the common thing to mix in there. But I’ve also read some serious horror stories about the side effects that Cipro can have, even when used in eyedrops (let alone in pills that you take). Anyone know anything about that?
I did not have anything that had that as the name. I remember the Bromday and Duresol and I had some others for a short time. I remember I had a green capped one, yellow capped one, a pink capped one and grey capped one. and for a short time one of those was for pressure in the eye after the surgery. I used it for a week and then was done. I am diabetic and because of that had to be on the some of the medications for longer just to ensure no complications. The docotr gave me free samples because the drops were very expensive on my insurance. (my doctor does not believe in generic and my insurance will pretty much only cover generics)
End of day 2 after surgery. I am not adapting well to having one good and one “bad” eye, especially since the bad one is the one that was operated on. I had a post-op checkup this morning and the doctor says everything is fine and that it is too early to expect to be seeing well with that eye. So I can see with my unoperated-on eye (left), with my glasses. The operated-on eye (right) doesn’t see well without glasses, nor does it see well with glasses. To see anything, I have to put our homemode eyepatch on and just look with the left eye.
I had some pain last night after the local anaesthesia wore off, but they told me not to take anything except Tylenol, which does exactly zero for me. So I didn’t sleep well, either. Today I did take a real pain reliever, ibuprofen, so at least my eye doesn’t ache so much any more.
In answer to other questions, I’m doing my own eyedrops. Four times a day with Polymyxin-Trimethoprim (antibiotic) and Durezol (steroid). I’m supposed to do this for 10 more days and then start drops called Nevanac. Today the doctor also said my eye was a bit dry and recommended I use “artificial tears” (lubricant eyedrops) in between times.
I had no actual pain during the surgery. They supposedly gave me some sedation, but as far as I could tell it had absolutely no effect.
Another questions for other post-ops: How did you manage to wash your hair when you can’t get your eye wet for a week? I can certainly do sponge baths for the rest of me, but I have long hair and it is going to start to be nasty in another day.
I taped around the eye sheild over my eye and kept my eye shut tight. I don’t like water streaming down my face so I don’t put my face in the shower spray. The sheild kept any mist out and the tape any water from running down my face. I had so much saline in my hair I HAD to wash my hair.
the only restrictions I had were to not go swimming for a month and not to pick up anything weighing more than 10 lbs and not to bend over or stoop down (anything that would add strain to my face). Nothing about not washing my hair.
My instructions are similar; no bending over except for something quick & light like tying my shoes (Most of my shoes don’t need tying anyway.), don’t pick up anything over I think 15 or 20 lbs, don’t touch the eye or get it wet except for the eyedrops, no strenuous activities. All limitations are for one week only.
I’m still struggling with what to do with the left eye. I have until Tuesday to decide.
This is not going as well as I had expected. The best I can say is that my brain is starting to learn to ignore input from my right eye. If I take off my glasses, the vision in my right eye is actually worse than before the surgery. Nothing is in focus. So I leave them on and rely on the unaltered left eye.
The surgery on the left eye is scheduled for the 27th and I have to decide by this coming Tuesday which lens to get. I am seriously afraid that if the right eye can’t focus by then, I will leave after the surgery on the 27th unable to see clearly out of either eye, with or without glasses.
I’m planning to call the doctor on Monday to ask about this.
I would be very concerned if I were you. For me and for most people whom I’ve spoken to who also had the surgery, our eyesight after the surgery was so much better that it seemed almost miraculous.
Yeah, that’s what I had hoped for. When I had my post-op checkup the day after, the doctor said it was too soon to expect anything. A couple days later the surgery center called to check up on me and when I described my vision the rep said basically the same thing. “You’ve got a half inch wound! In your eye! It will take six weeks to heal!” I’m wondering if I should call today anyway.
The comments you report are even more disturbing. Perhaps they’re trying to keep you calm, but I was told in advance that my eyesight would be vastly better as soon as the patch came off. Though perhaps your cataracts weren’t so severe, so there is less change from pre- to post- op.
If I were you, I’d call today, but that’s just me.
Yeah, I have a call in to the doctors. This is just annoying. I’m seriously considering telling him to forget the second surgery entirely. Maybe I’m over reacting, but for the price of this thing I expected better.