Retinal detachment - anyone had it?
 

3-4 weeks ago noticed a grey spot in my peripheral. one week ago called the Eye doc and after some insistence they got me in 24 hours later.

Quick exam on a Thursday and scheduled me for vitrectomy and retinal re-attachment on Monday. I'm annoyed I had to wait 2-3 extra days (they originally wanted next day) because I couldn't get a pre-op physical until Monday.

I was dismayed to hear that 1 out of 10 require a second surgery and that only half of those are successful (net is 95% recovery rate) and that cataract surgery is almost a guarantee at some point. They told me other than following basic positioning and avoiding strain, there is nothing I can do to help put my self in the 90% category.

I'm lucky in that it was at the top of my retina (likely due to another laser surgery 30 years ago) so the gas bubble stays in place when I'm upright. Even the 24 hour face down procedure I had was hell.

Have you gone through this? What was your experience?

Physically the discomfort has been manageable. The mental aspect of considering a very different future life plan with only one working eye has been very challenging these last 5 days. Feels like almost nothing I like to do will be possible with monocular vision if it comes to that.

I'm struggling with the idea that you only get two attempts at this and then its "sorry, get used to it"

My racing buddy Ted, in his last race flipped his 914-6 end over end when he was forced into the sand just after turn two at Willow Springs and his car landed hard upside down on the pavement. The car slid across the pavement then dug the splitter into the sand on the other side and flipped over back on the wheels. Two days later he noted that colors were fading on their flatscreen. No color in right eye and a bunch of pain, left eye looked okay and colors were fine. Wife drove him to the ER, luck would have it there was an eye specialist and told him he had a detached retina in the bad eye. Next day he had surgery to attach the retina and then the eye was pressurized with N2 and he had to keep "looking down" and nothing would kill the pain he said. If took 3 weeks and finally the pain went away and he could see pretty close to normal with the right eye once again but he had lost his depth perception somewhat. It finally came back after several months.
John

I have had 4 Vitrectomies on the left eye and 6 on the right. None for torn retina but other issues. Its nothing, not like is use to be. When the vitreous is removed from the eye, its back filleed with a gas. This gas is what keeps pressure on the retina to help heal. So afterwards you will need to try and keep you head down, looking downward, so that this bobble will be against the retina. You won't be able to see out of that eye for about a month and half. Do not do any lifting, driving, and try to keep your head downward. The biggest hassle will be looking at this bubble wiggle when you move you head and you might loose your depth perception until it heals. Stepping out into a parking lot off a curb can be frustrating. Things are SO much more advance in just 5 years. I understand the nervousness but the worst is the time to heal, so be patient.

My wife had a detachment, and it was pretty much dead center (unusual and generally bad). She had it for a while getting worse and worse until she finally went to her regular optometrist. The optometrist said "go to the Dr ASAP." I think she got in the next day, first thing in the morning. They had her in surgery in 3-4 hours. They emptied something like 70-80% of the fluid out of the eye so/because the air bubble would help hold the retina in place. I think she spent at least several days, maybe a week having to be face down (to keep the retina "above" the bubble).
She had the beginnings of a cataract before the surgery. The air bubble accelerated the cataract. Four to six weeks after the vitrectomy, she had a lens replacement to fix the cataract. Several months after the lens replacement, she got some cloudiness on another part (in front of the lens) of the eye. She now needs to go in for a quick zap which fixes the cloudiness.

They gave her/us instructions on what to do after the vitrectomy, and we followed those instructions to a T, something like 3-4 different kinds of drops at different intervals gradually decreasing over the course of several weeks. I think at the beginning (first couple/few days?), some of the drops were, I think, every 2 hours. Like I said, I think it was either 5 days or 7 days that she had to be face down all of the time except when putting in eye drops (huge PITA).

She said that the discomfort the first day or few days was irritating, feeling like there was sand in her eye.

I think it took about a month for the bubble to go away and her to be able to tell that her vision was OK. (you can't really see through the bubble well).

She ended up having excellent recovery.

Chris...hope your recovery goes well...and best to all with vision problems.

Good luck Chris. With those vehicles you need good eyes.

Sorry to hear your troubles Chris and I wish you the best.

Fortunately, I do not have any troubles, but I do have a friend that has what I think he calls degenerative retinas or something like that. He goes once a month to the eye doctor where they give him needles in his eyes to slow down the deterioration. His eyes become so sensitive to light after the needles he sits in a completely dark room for the following day until it becomes bearable.

I could not imagine. Best of luck.

I had a similar, but different, retinal issue- epiretinal membrane with tear and pucker.
I am an MD, but no nothing about eyes. Nothing, nada.
Similar surgery- vitrectomy and retinal peel.
Surgery was easy peasy. I had a good result- got about 80% of my vision back- retina is still "wrinkled" so areas go in and out of focus. Eye strain if I do close up work for more than a couple of hours.
I developed a cataract 2-3 months later. It came on fast. That surgery was easy as well.
Good luck.
gary

I echo this.

Thanks for the words of encouragement.

I’m “lucky” in that my issue is near the very top of the retina which means I can be upright and still have the bubble pressing on the retina in the right place. Had to be face down for 24 hours. It’s been 5 days since the surgery and my eye has filled about about 1/3.

Instrument 41 from reading I’ve done, it seemed like they got 2 shots at the reattachment and that was it. Sounds like that may not be the case. Guess I should ask my doc.

Recover

Both my mom and dad had issues that were surgically repaired with very little trouble afterwards.
My dad did notice after time that the cataract in the eye that was repaired was worse than the other. Both cataracts were done within a year of each other after.

I'll tell you who had it - Joe Amato, a championship-caliber Top Fuel dragster driver. He got it from the negative g's he experienced when he popped the parachutes of his dragster after one-too-many 300 mph runs. Had to retire from the sport because of it.

Good luck with the recovery, cstreit!

Guess I'm lucky with never a detachment. Just (?) Macular degeneration, Glaucoma, cataracts. Old age gives one some not so fun problems. Not many youngsters in Opthalmologist waiting rooms. But it does make one more sympatico with others having vision problems.

Hang in...this too shall pass...right?

Yeap. Been there done that! 7 days face down was the worst part I think….I said that because my detachment was bad and I now have distortion in one eye. At least I didn’t loose sight! It’s been 6 months. I’m going to look into (no pun indented) some correction surgery if it can be done.

Rectal detachment, no never had it.
I thought I almost had it, but it turned out to be just a number two.


Oh wait.. retinal.
No, never had that either.

Sorry to read this Chris. I have had cataract surgery on both eyes and a torn retina in my left eye. No detachment so I don't know what that looks like. I do get an annual retina exam and I understand that it can happen again. Nothing to take lightly.

All the best.

Hang in there Chris, I had a detachment about 3 months after IOL surgery. More common than I think they admit. Vitrecromy, lots of laser spot welds, face down for 14 horribly boring days, and full site restored around week 5. Wizardry, really.

sugar ray leonard.

Can’t decide if I’m lucky because mine was high on the retina and didn’t have to do face,down for long, or just unlucky that I’m now contemplating very different life plans if this goes sideways. Day 6 and it’s going well so far. Thanks for the thoughts.

Not exactly on topic but vitreous detachment is much more likely as we age, posterior vitreous detachment (PVD) is when the vitreous detaches from the retina causing floaters and peripheral flashes (scotoma). Almost everybody gets it by or soon after age 80. No treatment unless the vitreous tears the retina or makes holes in it which must be laser welded back in place or other surgeries as noted above.

Pretty related though. Doc figures some calcified floaters have been tugging on my retina for some time and the shrinking vitreous makes it worse.

My dad had a detached retina fixed. I don't remember all the details but they filled his eye with some fluid to repair the detachment. The doctor told him he will see a bubble in the bottom of his vision. When they removed the eye patch sure enough dad said there was a bubble kinda like the ones on a level, or smaller, on the bottom of his field of vision.

It is on the bottom because the eye, like all lenses flip the image. Our brains flip the image so the world makes sense. Dad said it was almost like a pet having his bubble and it made it easy to know when his head was tilted. It slowly shrank in size and went away.

His mom lost vision in one eye, and had poor vision in the other eye from retina issues. I see a ophthalmologist and eye surgeon once per year. He know of the genetic possibility of retina issues. He always looks real close at my retinas with his huge magnifying gizmo.

I have the air bubble in there now. After one week its about half gone.

My eye is slowly refilling. On Day 7 the water level was right in my line of sight - I actually got a little seasick that day as it wobbled back and forth with small head movements. Fascinating and disconcerting.

My dad gave his bubble a funny nickname that I don't remember. He said as it got smaller he almost felt sad his little buddy was going away.

When his mom had a detached retina back in the 1960s she was in the hospital for over a week, stuck in bed, and they had her head sandbagged and strapped down to prevent her from moving. She had to have nurses feed her and clean her for the week. She said it was a horrible ordeal, but she had good enough vision to drive with huge coke bottle lenses.

I had epiretinal surgery in Dec. 2020 & relate to your post-op experience. There was a couple of days during recovery I had a double image in my eye when the gas bubble (fwiw & sounds nasty - SF6 - sulfur hexafluoride) was about half way & as per your observation, summed up my experience exactly. I was lucky as my visual acuity is now about 90% of my dominant eye.

Cataract surgery may be in your future as it became in mine. The results were quite startling & positive except for the fact, when I look in a mirror, I am somewhat taken aback by the ancient grizzled visage before me.

Best of luck in your recovery & Cheers
JB