Hi all,
I am 6 weeks post-op today and still afflicted by this eye/vision problem since I woke from surgery. Basically, both eyes function normally when one is closed, the other is open. But if I open them together, the right eye lazes over outward ( called strabismus) and I have blurry/kinda double vision ( binocular diplothia). I end up squinting the right eye shut to see and the left eye alone has some blurriness I didn't have before.
I was able to get in to see a very well-known nuero-opthamologist/researcher Dr. Peter Savino of UCSD yesterday. He knew my case before going in and had done some research. Are you ready for this. There is no documented case ever of my eye problem following spine surgery. I don't meet the criteria for any diagnosis, but he said it is like a "partial" cranial nerve 3 injury. He feels I likely had blood loss to an area in the brain during surgery causing the symptoms. He does not feel I need any imaging because it wouldn't change the treatment plan of wait for recovery. Does he know I will recover? No. But he feels optimistic that this will repair itself over time- maybe 6 weeks or maybe 6 months. He wants me to wear a patch, either eye is fine and come back in 8 weeks. They did a lot of tests and it seemed my eyes looked good. He said if I feel comfortable driving with one eye, I can but it is up to me. I said I absolutely don't feel comfortable at this point.
He did tell me he attended a meeting/conference of anesthesiologists, scoli surgeons where he was one of three neuro-opthamologists to figure out how to prevent blindness following scoli surgery. He said it was called following a 13 year old having scoliosis surgery and going blind in both eyes. I have no idea when it was but I know he is very well-versed in what happens during surgery.
My cup can shift from being half empty ("why me??" "Isn't this surgery enough to recover from, but now this? What if I don't get better?") to half full ("I still can see. I have no eye pain. I didn't go blind!! I could have been one of those statistics".) Everyone around me is positive but I just have a dark feeling this vision problem will not improve. It is annoying and my eye tires easily when I try to read or type. I am not home yet but I can already tell the patch is going to drive me crazy. It makes your eye sweaty and the band tugs. And who wants to tell people 300 times a day why your wearing an eye patch?
Ugh. Enough complaining. It has to get better. It just has to.
Jana
I am 6 weeks post-op today and still afflicted by this eye/vision problem since I woke from surgery. Basically, both eyes function normally when one is closed, the other is open. But if I open them together, the right eye lazes over outward ( called strabismus) and I have blurry/kinda double vision ( binocular diplothia). I end up squinting the right eye shut to see and the left eye alone has some blurriness I didn't have before.
I was able to get in to see a very well-known nuero-opthamologist/researcher Dr. Peter Savino of UCSD yesterday. He knew my case before going in and had done some research. Are you ready for this. There is no documented case ever of my eye problem following spine surgery. I don't meet the criteria for any diagnosis, but he said it is like a "partial" cranial nerve 3 injury. He feels I likely had blood loss to an area in the brain during surgery causing the symptoms. He does not feel I need any imaging because it wouldn't change the treatment plan of wait for recovery. Does he know I will recover? No. But he feels optimistic that this will repair itself over time- maybe 6 weeks or maybe 6 months. He wants me to wear a patch, either eye is fine and come back in 8 weeks. They did a lot of tests and it seemed my eyes looked good. He said if I feel comfortable driving with one eye, I can but it is up to me. I said I absolutely don't feel comfortable at this point.
He did tell me he attended a meeting/conference of anesthesiologists, scoli surgeons where he was one of three neuro-opthamologists to figure out how to prevent blindness following scoli surgery. He said it was called following a 13 year old having scoliosis surgery and going blind in both eyes. I have no idea when it was but I know he is very well-versed in what happens during surgery.
My cup can shift from being half empty ("why me??" "Isn't this surgery enough to recover from, but now this? What if I don't get better?") to half full ("I still can see. I have no eye pain. I didn't go blind!! I could have been one of those statistics".) Everyone around me is positive but I just have a dark feeling this vision problem will not improve. It is annoying and my eye tires easily when I try to read or type. I am not home yet but I can already tell the patch is going to drive me crazy. It makes your eye sweaty and the band tugs. And who wants to tell people 300 times a day why your wearing an eye patch?
Ugh. Enough complaining. It has to get better. It just has to.
Jana
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