Well, I’m 53 (but apparently 85yrs old inside) and as
@Convex mentioned, I had toric lenses installed late Jan of this year. I had the distance set in a monovision fashion, which means one eye is set for close up and the other for distance. About 20% of the population’s brains can merge the two images together. Works well for me.
Recently, I also had double vitreous detachment, which left me with Jupiter-sized floaters, one in each eye. I already had millions of small floaters, but now it’s just out-of-control stupid.
Was walking on pins and needles and not lifting a thing due to my dad having three retina detachments after his surgeries 30 yrs ago. Didn’t matter, as I had a retina detachment about four weeks ago. Good times.
I caught it very early. Noticed I suddenly lost a tiny bit of my bottom peripheral vision in one eye and immediately called the doctor at 8pm at night on a Sat.
He had me come in at 9am on Sunday and lasered around the entire retina’s circumference and injected a gas bubble to float up and press against the detachment in order to make it stick against the back of the eye. You see, the bottom of your vision is actually the top of the retina as you see upside down and your brain flips it.
Outpatient procedure. With lots of needles. Yeesh.
I was instructed to sleep sitting straight up, like in grade school lol. Didn’t make it the whole night…impossible. Then the next day he lasered the detached bit. So it was a success.
But I’ll see that damn black giant gas bubble at the bottom of my vision for another month, at least, until it gets absorbed by my body (2 months total). The bubble reflects light so I also see lots of internal flare plus the Jupiter floaters, and that eye’s vision is fuzzy due to the iris being dilated (see below).
Can’t fly with a gas bubble in the eye, nor can I have certain anesthesia until the gas bubble goes away. Or “pop” goes the eyeball
The laser procedure caused my eye to be massively dilated for 6 months, and just in case I need the other “good” eye lasered in a month to hopefully prevent
that retina from detaching.
I guess if one eye goes, the other is sure to follow.
So then I’ll have
two massively dilated eyes for months and months. No shooting for me for most of this year…last time I picked up a rifle was in January, pre-cataract surgery.
After that I’ll probably need the floaters either lasered (like Star Wars) or eliminated via traditional surgery (suck bad juice out, put good juice back in lol).
Before the surgery I was nearsighted at -10 / -11.
I do wish they made cataract replacement lenses physically bigger to mimic the biologic lenses so the eye’s internal volume wasn’t reduced. I was told, as someone above mentioned, that this is a main reason for vitreous detachment which, in people like me, often leads to a retina detachment.
I guess I’m lucky because I can still see?
Moral of the story is: Even if you don’t see a shower of floaters, pay attention. The doc was amazed I had detected the detachment. Earlier detection = better.
If the retina really falls off bad then you need major “open-up-the-eyeball” surgery, which my dad had three times and man, that is noooooo good. In his case, during one surgery some noob nicked an eye muscle and then he was sorta cross-eyed for some time. Ugh.
Sorry for being so wordy. Maybe this will help someone in the future.
