No Cataract Surgery for Me

[W2R]

That eye cover always reminds me of the film "The Fly".

I had similar instructions to yours. Take it easy, no heavy lifting. The one exception was not to bend over "deeply" for the first day or two - that is, no bending to pick up things from the floor.

Yes, I had that too, I think. Either that, or I read it on the internet and decided on my own not to bend over to pick things up. I've forgotten. I was so concerned/terrified about the possibility of retinal detachment (which runs in my family), that I pretty much just sat in my easy chair for the first week. I did read somewhere (doctor's instructions? internet?) that is was OK to tie my shoes. But still, I didn't bend over to do that; I bent my leg so that I could lift my foot up onto the sofa seat while sitting there, and tied my shoes in that position without bending over.

 

[MichaelB]

The Ophthalmologist that worked on me did surgeries one morning per week. The next morning, we all went in for the first post op checkup. When he looked at me he was shaking his head. He told me that the lady he had just seen took off the eye cover because it was uncomfortable and replaced it with gauze. When she decided to change the gauze the next morning, it was stuck, so she just pulled it off .. along with the new lens.

 

[REWahoo]

The Ophthalmologist that worked on me...

I hope there is no relationship between your eye surgery experience and your choice of avatars.

 

[MichaelB]

<rimshot>

 

[eytonxav]

I hope there is no relationship between your eye surgery experience and your choice of avatars.

I am not sure who his avatar is, maybe blind mellow chitlin

 

[eytonxav]

Had my pre-op appointment yesterday. I have a new eye drop to take for the next week before my right eye gets fixed. They told me, as far as the laser surgery goes, they do not typically do that unless a patient has a fair amount of astigmatism, and I have very little, so it will be standard surgical technique for me. Also, asked about the dropless procedure and apparently they make a decision during the operation for it or not, so I won't know the answer to that until I am in recovery. Right now the biggest worry for me is keeping my head upright while I heal.

 

[W2R]

I know what you mean! It probably won't be as hard to do as it sounds, though.

I think I kept my head upright all the time for at least two weeks after my surgeries, other than when sleeping. My doctor was so adamant about rest that I just sat in my easy chair, surfed the internet, watched TV, and played video games. Major couch potato time. I did get pretty weak from doing nothing but it was a good exchange for the much improved vision.

 

[eytonxav]

That lounging around also bothers me. It took me quite a while to get back in shape after my hospitalization last fall, and now it looks like I will be repeating that process. Oh well, being able to see certainly outweighs the future reconditioning that will be needed.

 

[eytonxav]

Had surgery on my right eye a few hours ago. Everything seemed to go smoothly; was a little surprised about the amount of dilating drops and numbing gel they put in my eye. As far as anesthesia goes, I didn't really feel it do much, since I was totally awake during the procedure, but absolutely no pain. Now I have my eye patch which will stay on until my checkup tomorrow and I believe it will also need to be worn at night for a while. I think they gave me the dropless procedure, but will find out for sure tomorrow. Hoping thats the case.

The whole thing was definitely much easier than I anticipated and now I am looking forward to seeing what my vision will be like with the patch off and after the all the eye dilation drops wear off. It was so easy it makes me wish I didn't have to wait 3 more weeks to get the other eye done.

 

[W2R]

Had surgery on my right eye a few hours ago. Everything seemed to go smoothly; was a little surprised about the amount of dilating drops and numbing gel they put in my eye. As far as anesthesia goes, I didn't really feel it do much, since I was totally awake during the procedure, but absolutely no pain. Now I have my eye patch which will stay on until my checkup tomorrow and I believe it will also need to be worn at night for a while. I think they gave me the dropless procedure, but will find out for sure tomorrow. Hoping thats the case.

The whole thing was definitely much easier than I anticipated and now I am looking forward to seeing what my vision will be like with the patch off and after the all the eye dilation drops wear off. It was so easy it makes me wish I didn't have to wait 3 more weeks to get the other eye done.

Hurray!! I'm so glad your surgery went well. Maybe if you have written post-surgical instructions, they will say whether or not you need to continue your eyedrops between now and your checkup tomorrow.

 

[eytonxav]

Hurray!! I'm so glad your surgery went well. Maybe if you have written post-surgical instructions, they will say whether or not you need to continue your eyedrops between now and your checkup tomorrow.

No drops to take between now and tomorrow, just keep eye patch on and keep head upright awake and sleeping. I guess thats the hardest part of the healing process. Kind of cumbersome to wear glasses over the eye patch so my left eye can see.

 

[MRG]

Congratulations.

Your vision likely will continue improving over the next dsys, weeks.

I hear you on the 3 weeks that's what I was scheduled to wait. On that week I was there IV in and dilated.... My surgeon went home sick! I was disappointed but he knew best.

 

[eytonxav]

Congratulations.

Your vision likely will continue improving over the next dsys, weeks.

I hear you on the 3 weeks that's what I was scheduled to wait. On that week I was there IV in and dilated.... My surgeon went home sick! I was disappointed but he knew best.

I'm sure the surgeon was being careful to not lose his steady hands/eyes and didn't want to infect you. We had bad storms today in DFW, so I was wondering what happens if the lights went out, although I suppose they had battery/generator backup.

 

[W2R]

If it was a hospital, I'm sure they have their own generators. If it was an outpatient facility that wasn't a part of a hospital, like where mine was done, who knows? Probably they'd have a generator too. My surgery only took 7 minutes, and the outpatient clinic was located two blocks from a big hospital. Either way I'm sure they had all the bases covered.

I'm glad the storms didn't result in cancellation of your surgery, or any problems with the surgery itself. Cancellation would be awful after waiting so long.

I only had to wait a week between surgeries, and even that seemed long. Until the third day or so I was nervous about having the surgeries so close together, but by then my vision had cleared up in the first eye. I can't imagine having to wait for 3 weeks! That would be awfully hard I think.

I couldn't get one lens out of my glasses so that both sides would work for me (the screw was stripped), so I didn't wear my glasses between surgeries. Basically I just napped and watched TV IIRC, since it was only a week.

 

[braumeister]

keep head upright awake and sleeping.

If it helps, my guess is that you don't have to worry about it if your head drops while sleeping. I had no such restriction and neither did anyone else I know of. Wearing the colander eye protector and using lots of drops were the only post-surgery instructions.

Do what your surgeon wants, but if you're concerned about lapses, I wouldn't be.

 

[W2R]

If it helps, my guess is that you don't have to worry about it if your head drops while sleeping. I had no such restriction and neither did anyone else I know of. Wearing the colander eye protector and using lots of drops were the only post-surgery instructions.

Same here. I had the colander eye protector and lots of surgical tape to tape it to my face. Maybe they didn't give him one? I don't remember wearing the gauze eye patch at all after leaving the outpatient facility, although my memory is a bit fuzzy about that so maybe I did. I probably talked about it in my thread.

Do what your surgeon wants, but if you're concerned about lapses, I wouldn't be.

Yes, I'd try to do what the surgeon says if you possibly can. If you can't, then you can't.

 

[MichaelB]

Had surgery on my right eye a few hours ago. Everything seemed to go smoothly; was a little surprised about the amount of dilating drops and numbing gel they put in my eye. As far as anesthesia goes, I didn't really feel it do much, since I was totally awake during the procedure, but absolutely no pain. Now I have my eye patch which will stay on until my checkup tomorrow and I believe it will also need to be worn at night for a while. I think they gave me the dropless procedure, but will find out for sure tomorrow. Hoping thats the case.

The whole thing was definitely much easier than I anticipated and now I am looking forward to seeing what my vision will be like with the patch off and after the all the eye dilation drops wear off. It was so easy it makes me wish I didn't have to wait 3 more weeks to get the other eye done.

Nice ..

 

[eytonxav]

Thanks for the encouraging words. I do have the colander style eye patch.

 

[W2R]

Thanks for the encouraging words. I do have the colander style eye patch.

Oh good! I know that for me, it gave me a lot more confidence about being able to sleep without hitting my eye on something or other. I really liked having it, although I was also really glad to get rid of it after using it for the prescribed time.

 

[eytonxav]

Had my one day follow-up yesterday and they removed my eye patch. I was expecting much clearer vision, but had blurriness. Dr said everything looks good, but there is still some swelling and vision will improve. It does seem a little better today, but I hope it doesn't take too much longer to dramatically improve. I did get the dropless procedure, however they want me to use Ilevro 1x/day for another month. With dropless, since the medication is injected into your eye, it does make for some cloudiness in the vision and creates some floaters as you can see the medication moving around periodically. It does take some time for it to absorb and disappear, but to me it still seems better than doing the eye drop routine. I did not have to pay extra for the dropless.

I popped my right lens out of my glasses, but it does seem a bit weird since my left eye still has a progressive lens. I need to pick up some readers so both eyes will be on more of an equal basis while I am on computer and reading.

They told me to get a plain lens to put back into the eye glass frame, but I have Costco glasses, and I doubt they would be able to come up with something without putting it on order and taking several days. I am not sure if I can get one of the other local eye glass places to make up a lens for me as I wait.

They also gave me a card that shows that I have a lens implant, so I wonder if that will suffice as proof of vision vs getting my drivers license changed.

 

[W2R]

It took several days for my vision to clear up, IIRC, so I'm not surprised that things still look blurry. How cool that you only have to use one of the three types of drops!

In my cataract surgery thread from six months ago, we discussed whether the implant card would help if one didn't have one's driver's license changed. IIRC Walt or someone said that if he was the law enforcement guy involved, he'd still give the ticket and let the judge deal with it. At any rate, whatever was said in that discussion inspired me to go ahead and get my driver's license changed and I did that before driving for the first time after surgery.

Here if you are willing to pay a few bucks more, you can take care of OMV business at private offices in various strip malls instead of having to battle the craziness down at the OMV, so I did that. It cost me $31, took less than 1/2 hour, no big deal, and it was fun to pass the vision test without my glasses.

Is sleeping going OK? I can't imagine trying to sleep with my head upright; even when I nap in my easy chair, my head sags down.

 

[eytonxav]

Here if you are willing to pay a few bucks more, you can take care of OMV business at private offices in various strip malls instead of having to battle the craziness down at the OMV, so I did that. It cost me $31, took less than 1/2 hour, no big deal, and it was fun to pass the vision test without my glasses.

Is sleeping going OK? I can't imagine trying to sleep with my head upright; even when I nap in my easy chair, my head sags down.

I dread going to the DMV here in Texas, as its usually an absolute zoo. I do not know what the laws in Texas are for removing the corrective lens restriction, need to look into that.

We have an adjustable bed, so was able to tilt the bed up the first night and was told to sleep on my back; not a very good nights sleep. At the appointment, they said I did not have to do that going forward, but to just use the shield at night and while napping. So last night tilted the bed up slightly, slept on my back and had a much better night. I am normally a side sleeper, but I want to be extra cautious. After going through eye surgery, I will do everything possible not to have a complication.

 

[braumeister]

I dread going to the DMV here in Texas, as its usually an absolute zoo. I do not know what the laws in Texas are for removing the corrective lens restriction, need to look into that.

In Kentucky, I just went in to the local office at a slack time in the afternoon and asked about it. They gave me the standard vision test with the machine and issued a new DL without the restriction. The whole visit took less than ten minutes and cost nothing.

 

[W2R]

Whew, I would not want to go to the DMV in DFW either, right after surgery like that. Even the OMV offices here in New Orleans are just hideous and involve hours of waiting in line, often 3-4 hours no matter what time of day or when.

Hmm, I wonder if you could have your DW or someone drive you to a DMV in a smaller community out of town that might be less of a zoo? It might be worth it just to avoid the masses of people and long lines.

I love the fact that I can just pay a few bucks extra and go to these privately run places in strip malls, here. They treat you with dignity and respect (what a great idea ), give you a comfortable chair to sit in, and the wait time is short.

I am a side sleeper too, and what worried me most about that was possibly dislodging the shield. So, I used a lot of tape and that kept it on. I tried to sleep on the other side but after I was asleep, I couldn't make sure of what side I was sleeping on. Anyway, it all worked out fine.

 

[eytonxav]

I love the fact that I can just pay a few bucks extra and go to these privately run places in strip malls, here. They treat you with dignity and respect (what a great idea ), give you a comfortable chair to sit in, and the wait time is short.

They do that here when getting finger printed for a concealed carry permit, but don't believe there is anything like that for vision tests. It is a very good idea, and probably relieves some of the burden at your state DL offices.