I have a callus on my right eyeball, and a corneal abrasion that has stubbornly refused to heal. The eye doctor’s solution is to shave off a layer or two to “even it out.” Apparently there’s sort of a “flap”, and stuff gets under it, and it moves around.
He’s doing the shaving tomorrow morning.
Anyone ever had this done? I’m not concerned about pain – anything will be better than dealing with the way it’s been feeling. (Sort of like a rusty needle stuck in my eye, and in bright daylight, like the sun is boring a hole right through to my brain.)
I guess I’m just looking for reassurance that it’s okay for someone to scrape away at my eyeball.
Nowadays, medical procedures on the eye are simple and mostly effective.
You should likely enjoy a full recovery, once the healing and Mind-destroying months of agonizing pain have ended.
That is of course, if they end… Sometimes they leave the razor in there and they don’t realize it. You’ll be having another eye surgery one day years and years from now, and the doctor will open your eye up, and say “Hey! There’s a razor in here! I wonder how long that’s been here?”
Actually, you have nothing to fear at all. The procedure will go without a hitch.
I did a little searching on Yahoo!, using keywords corneal and shav, and the phrase corneal scraping. After checking a few out, it looks like a fairly routine operation, should be mo problem. Might be more info, I’ll keep my eyes peeled.
Just as a matter of interest (it isn’t the same thing at all), one of the guys here at work has some condition that makes his corneas thicken up and get bumpy. He had to go in a couple of years ago and get them planed down with a laser. He got to watch himself on TV (I assume with the other eye) as it scanned back and forth, zapping off bits of cornea on the way. We all suggested that the surgeon had programmed the laser to carve her initials down in the corner.
A few years back, I had some melted plastic lodge itself on my left eye, right on the eyeball. We use this stuff to fix minor defects on the coating on pipe - heat it up with a hand torch (blow torch) and dab it on to the defective coating. Anyway, a gust of wind caught it and blew it back into my face, over my safety glasses and into my eye. It was easy to see because it was bright green.
At first, our on-site first aid guy was going to try and remove it with a Q-tip while I was standing on the side of the road (I put the kibosh on that pretty quickly.) I ended up having to drive myself to the nearest hospital (80 kms away or so) and had the emergency room doctor look at it.
He put a drop of pain killer in that eye, and scraped the plastic off with what looked like a buttonhook. It wasn’t really painful - the worst part was that I had no choice but to watch (duh.) It’s not like you can look away until it’s over.
I hate having people come near my eyes (always have), but I can assure you, AuntiePam, this is a fairly routine procedure. I mean, if an emergency room doctor in Steinbach, Manitoba can do it, a specialist should have no problems whatsoever. Nothing to worry about.
Post-op report – ouch. The procedure wasn’t at all painful, and mostly a scratchy, burning sensation all day after. It was kinda neat, hearing the little rotating buzzing thing, and then the needle scrapes. The anesthetic wore off in about 20 minutes, and I drove the last few blocks home with both eyes closed.
The patch came off this morning, and doc put on a contact lens band-aid. The eye’s red and swollen and light-sensitive, but doc says it’s about half healed.
Nice to be able to see again today, but my vision’s blurred, and still sensitive to light.
Hate to miss work (cough snort). There’s nothing on TV, is there?! Can’t see well enough to read, so I guess it’s nappy-time today.
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