new member cataract

Hi. I am not a health professional I am just a patient. I was very mucjh in your shoes about 18 months ago, absolutely terrified because my father had to have this operation, they messed up, it left him in agony for a couple of days. The more I see posts like yours and anothe ron here the more I think I ought to write down my experiences as an e-book and give it to the UK RNIB because now I have a very, VERY different outlook.

I will not trivialise the procedure, it can be very frightening to think about. I can give you details if you like. The worst bit for me was waiting to have th eoperation (almost a year) and then waiting while the eye drops take effect !!

They took me in sat me down put those orrible stinging drops in the eye to open the iris up all the way, four lots, over a couple of hours. All the time you are worrying (!!!). Your vision goes even more blurred. It is really a mental thing now, mind over matter and all that.

They take you into a room, lie you on a trolley and run the same sort of local anaesthetic - in drop form - your dentist uses on a cotton swab to numb the gum for a back tooth injection.

Then they asked me to look up and awat while they put a tube throught he side of the white of the eye and ran a load of anaesthetic and blocker in.

Now your vision fades to fog and you can't move your eye.

They take you into the theatre and in the case of the royal gwent newport here comes the most critical part fo the whole operation. They have to turn the trolley round so you go in head first, iotherwise you leave minus a toenail ...

By now you're all worked up and freaked, yeah ?

They put a sort of j-cloth thing over your head, it is not opaque light filters through but your "good" eye can't see anything now. At this point they usually offer you a nurse to hold your hand. I gladly accepted the offer from this swedish blonde ... called Sven. OK OK I'll cut the jokes now ...

You do not say how old you are, I an 57 and just had this operation last year.  I say that because what happens next really depends on you ...

A machine you can't focus on properly descends and this is the thing that is going to do the job. A device on it goes throught he hole in the front of the eye and throught he lens capsule. The old - can i say diseased ? - lens is destroyed by ultrasound and the remnants sucked away.

At this point a plastic lens is inserted and unrolled in the lens capsule.

The whole operation takes about 10 minutes maybe 15.

The machine will sing to you - it generates tones as various functions are fired up by the surgeon. Think Close encounters of the third kind. On the other hand since all those alien abduction films show needles going into the eye for the shock factor maybe DONT think it ...

What did I see and feel throughout ? I felt nothing, except for the cool water being sprayed to stop my eye drying out. While the machine is doing its work your eye is anaesthetised, immobile, but still "senses" light. The pressure and vibrations do stimulate the nerves, so what everyone sees is different. for me, I saw something like the outline of the ice cliffs from a superman mover in a white-out background. All very wierd, very abstract, and I suspect it would cost me a good £500 to acquire the illicit pharmaceuticals to excperience that sensation again !!!!!

The operation was over in ten minutes

I was home that night

For the next MONTH I had to put steroid and antibiotic drops in my eye to help with the inflammation and to prevent infection.

THE DAY AFTER the op I stood on my front drive and marvelled at the fact that I could see the individual branches in trees atop a mountain FOUR MILES AWAY.

I was born with very short sight (about -6) in the eye they operated on. To be able to see from two foot seven to four miles is like something biblical.

Now, there is a downside, there are possible problems. IT IS A FACT that you CAN go BLIND as a DIRECT RESULT of having this procedure.

I DID have complications after my surgery, VERY SERIOUS ONES ... I am off to write anothe rpost in a minute because I see someone else had the same corrective procedure I needed (I had to have an emergency vitrectomy a month or two after the op, as the retina started to peel off) but I am quite certain that was largely a mix of sheer bad luck and my extreme short sight. The vitrectomy was a stunning success and I can , to nick the words of Mr Roger Daltry, "see for miles and miles"

I went into the day unit for the cataract operation a shaking wreck scared of my own shadow.

I walked into the theatre for the far more serious and far less likely to work vitrectomy joking with the anaesthetist about the trolley needing turning round in Newport. I think it is probably a credit to the cataract team at the Gwent that they not only did the job but they took away my fear of having such procedures done.

I might also suggest if you cannot find help anywhere else (assuming you're in the UK) ring the royal national institute for the blind. They have a helpline and lots of info, and you don't have to be blind to call for their help (and if you think that's going a bit OTT the fact is if you need cataract surgery you already meet the criteria under their "charter" as a person in danger of losing their sight as someone they were set up to help)

I hope all of that helps and reading it does not make matters worse !