Anyone else experienced a detached retina

dudara

I realised last summer that I had a black spot in in the field of vision of my left eye, and that the eye had been feeling heavy and tired. A quick trip to an opthalmist confirmed that I had suffered a retinal detachment and it had progressed to quite a serious state, with the macula off.

I work with computers and had thought for a while that my eyes were simply tired. I do Taekwon Do, and the retinal detachment probably started as a fissure which gradually detiorated over the course of a month or two. Prior to this I had excellent eyesight. BTW I'm female and was 29 at the time.

I was immediately booked in for surgery in the Victoria with Daragh Kilmartin as my surgeon and had a cryo seal as well as a gaseous bubble in my eye to help the retina press back into place. A scheral buckle was attached to a lower quadrant of my eye. I had to posture on my right hand side for 2 weeks. A checkup about 3-4 weeks after surgery meant that I had to into the Victoria again for a morning procedure to use a laser to complete the seal, as it hadn't taken completely the first time.

Since then, vision has returned to my left eye. It is blurred, but I can read large bold text and the surgical team reckon that I have regained 50% vision, which is apparently quite good given my bad state. My overall combined vision is still quite sharp.

I realise now that I really can't afford to continue with TKD as I don't want to risk a further detachment and this really disappoints me. I was just wondering if any other posters had experienced a retinal detachment and if they experienced any further detachments? I'd be very interested in hearing other posters experiences.

kkth0360

Hi,
I had a detachment in my left eye in 1991, I was 18 at the time. The detachment was fairly small as it was caught early, and fortunately the macula was not involved. I'd had a punch to the eye a couple of years previously, and the surgeon reckoned that was the most likely cause.

I had surgery in the Eye & Ear with Maurice Fenton (now retired) - cryo with a scleral buckle and encircling band, but no gas bubble. My vision, which was perfect before, was affected quite a bit. I was suddenly extremely short-sighted in the affected eye, and I could never really get used to the glasses I was prescribed as there was such a large difference between the two eyes. So I just kind of adapted to having one good and one not-so-good eye, and have had very few problems vision-wise, apart from a load of floaters swimming about in there.

About 6 months ago I started getting some minor infections in the operated eye, and discovered that the encircling band has become exposed, or extruded, which apparently happens occasionally. My new surgeon has recommended that the band be removed, so I'm having that done next month, which should sort things out. The surgery carries a small risk of re-detachment, which I could really do without, but he reckons he'll be watching me like a hawk post-op, so if a detachment occurs it can hopefully be treated quickly and conservatively before any serious problems arise. And, as an added bonus, my vision is likely to improve a bit when the band is removed, as my eyeball returns to a more normal shape and becomes less myopic and astygmatic. So fingers crossed.

But in general, very few problems since the original surgery, although I'm definitely a bit more careful about avoiding any potential eye trauma than I was before - I gave up playing rugby after the surgery and I'm paranoid about wearing safety goggles for cutting the grass etc.

So hopefully you'll have no problems, and as time goes on you'll just get used to the less than perfect vision in one eye.