Post #320,756
1/29/10 11:43:26 PM
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Torn retina
On the way home from work yesterday something happened to my vision. Looked like somebody scribbled on the lower left part of my right eye vision with a black marker. After a while, the marks spread and thinned and turned into streams of dots. No pain or anything, not much obstruction. But I decided I better have it looked at.
This morning I went to the glasses place next door to my work. The answer I was looking for: "relax, it's just a little crud, it'll go away in a few days". The answer I got: "you have a torn retina, you need it fixed today, go sit in the lobby for a minute while I call a specialist."
Went to the specialist. A little rip in a part of the retina outside the field of vision, a few blood cells leaked into the vitreous gel which is what the black spots are. Untreated, fluid can get behind the retina and cause blind areas.
Zappity zap zap.
A couple of kilobucks worth of green flashing light. Me, insured?
The specialist suggested I take the weekend off. Said it was no problem driving home. I hope he knows more about the other aspects of all of this, because driving became a real challenge after about a mile and a half.
Focusing for more than a few minutes is just not happening.
Light is not my friend anymore. Most of my lights are multi-bulb, and I just removed most of the bulbs on them.
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Post #320,757
1/30/10 12:17:21 AM
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glad you were able to get it taken care of
before it became a permanent problem.
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Post #320,758
1/30/10 12:34:35 AM
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Yea, had a detached retina in one eye, and . . .
. . a small crack in the retina of the other eye. It went like this:
Dr. Chew: "OK, we can do surgery which is guaranteed to work at about US $5000 but the eye will never be quite the same, or we can try a bubble which is $2000 and has a probability of 70%, and if doesn't work we can still do surgery. The bubble I can do right now, surgery next week".
Me: "OK, let's try the bubble".
Dr. Chew: "OK, look down to the left, I'm going to inject a little anesthetic and do a freeze to create a scar that'll anchor this thing".
Dr. Chew: "OK, now look straight ahead and do not move your eye. I'm going to stick a needle in your eye and drain some fluid. It'll take a minute or so".
Me: "Ummm . . . OK".
Dr. Chew: "Good. Now look straight ahead and do not move your eye. I'm going to stick another needle in your eye and inject some gas".
Me: "Ummmm . . . OK".
Dr. Chew: "OK, lets have a look. Oh! that's a really nice bubble! This is going to work!"
Dr. Chew: "Do you have some dark glasses? Good. Pay at the door. Come back and see me in 10 days".
The bubble worked spectacularly, sight started coming back within minutes.
A few weeks later he hit the crack in the other eye with a laser. Man! What a light show - and noisy! I was totally blind in that eye for several minutes, then sight started to slowly return.
No retina problems in either eye since. Hope it works out well for you too.
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Post #320,771
1/30/10 8:41:09 AM
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Eyes are amazing things.
Even though they're effectively an extension of the brain, they don't have many pain receptors, so one can do things like that without causing much pain. (Supposedly, when you rub your eyes and see "stars", that's the analog to feeling pain.)
Sounds like you had an eye doc who knew what he was doing. :-)
Best of luck.
Cheers,
Scott.s
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Post #320,787
1/30/10 7:05:47 PM
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Knew what he was doing?
Random lens-fitter next door, yeah, he knows his stuff.
Captain Zap who sent me out on the road able to focus for about 5 minutes at a time? I'm not so sure.
I had the sense to walk down the block for a chicken sandwich and coffee before I hit the road. I wish I had the sense to phone a friend from there. I was fine to drive for about 5 minutes and then focus and ability to cope with brightness gave out, but nowhere safe to stop. I kind of assumed, based on how my eyes have always worked in the past, that good to drive now = good to drive in 5-10 minutes. Captain Zap ought not to have told me driving home was OK when I asked.
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Post #320,788
1/30/10 7:18:59 PM
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Zounds! Glad you made it home Ok. Take it easy.
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Post #320,789
1/30/10 7:57:33 PM
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Fortunately my experiences were not random.
When I realized I had a serious problem I went to an optometrist I'd met at a Burbank Chamber of Commerce mixer. He turned out not to be just an expert optometrist but a world famous specialist in low vision devices. A very good friend of mine*** can drive only because of devices he invented.
He lined me up with Retina-Vitreous over in North Hollywood, reputed to be the best there is. Their attitude is "Get it done, get it done right, get it done now, looks real fine, do check back in a year, thank you. Next".
I had to have a very dense cataract removed from that eye a few years later - same cause as the retina problem, panicked pigeon elbowed me in the eye at high velocity. Again, sent to the best there is.
Incidentally, the cataract guys want you fully conscious during the operation. They use an almost momentary anesthesia, just long enough to inject some stuff that partially blinds the eye so you don't get an unnecessarily vivid view of them digging around in it.
*** Dated her a couple times in the distant past, but her son made it clear he was fully prepared to make my life miserable if I hung around. He eventually went into the military and she's happily married now. I'll be seeing her this evening because she and her husband are hosting the Music Group this month.
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Post #320,769
1/30/10 8:33:26 AM
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Scary stuff. Glad you got it fixed. Best of luck!
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Post #320,808
1/31/10 7:03:06 PM
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Good to hear that such things are so repairable
(It's the sort of thing a one likes to experience.. er, vicariously?)
So much to go WRONG ... it sometimes seems as if Doze source code mirrors the same ignorance (we have/suffer) of the immune system and for that matter -- most bodily systems, as they interact in a particular individual.
Little wonder that med school folk are candidates for a period of hypochondria, eh?
I, who believes that it's best not to dwell on the possibilities -- lest one subsystem should say ... Hmmmm
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Post #320,851
2/2/10 12:34:31 AM
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Not exactly repair
The surgery tacked down the torn tissue to avoid further injury. Luckily, the damage is in a part of the retina that light doesn't hit, making it one of those many, many things that don't actually do anything useful but can wreck you if they fail. Intelligent design my ass. Which, if it had been intelligently designed, would be optimized for standing upright. But that's OK, because about half of my income comes from butts not working right because of the whole "walking on two legs" thing.
But yeah, I'm thrilled that the surgery is available and easy on me.
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