As someone who isn't far off this level with regular injections in regular places, I have a lot of sympathy for the author. Based on my past experience I'd expect it to take me a couple of years to get to the point of being able to do this, and I have no real anxiety about my eyes.
same. i can't even wear contacts -- i tried but it felt soooo bad!
my wife, on the other hand, is a fucking champ when it comes to anything eye related. she has keratoconus[0] and not only she has to do a ton of eye exams every year, but she has to wear rigid contact lenses whenever she's awake.
I'm probably not the first person to say it to you but the "fear" to put contact lenses fades very quickly. Maybe not the very first time, but from the second or the third time, you'll stop to think about it for ever.
> it felt soooo bad!
It shouldn't. You are not even supposed to feel them, in fact, some people fall asleep with them even if they know they shouldn't. If you suffered, even if it was your first try, it's probably due to presence of dust between your lens and your eye, and I agree that this is super painful. But that's not the normal sensation, and that's not an issue as long as you remove the lens and retry after some cleaning.
A bigger problem for me is getting them out. At least the dailies I've tried recently (various types). I had a pair of monthlies 10 years ago and I don't remember it being a big problem then.
I wonder if some people cope better with knowing less. If the procedure for removing the stitches from my eyeball had been explained in advance, I'd still have them now.
Going in, I'd imagined the best possible outcome. This, of course, didn't bear much relationship to what followed.
No doubt some people would have steeled themselves first given more information. (And perhaps been more stoic!)
This is one of those things that probably depends on the person, as well as the exact procedure. For some, "as little details as possible" is probably the right approach, for others "as many details as possible". For most of us? Probably somewhere in-between.
One of the advantages of giving details is that it builds a bit of a trust relationship with the doctor.
I have a lot of sympathy for the author. I've been thinking about getting LASIK (or SMILE as it seems to be gaining popularity in France) since friend got it and says it's life-changing, and since I've started considering it I sometimes have nightmares about the procedure.
I already had some minor surgery with local anesthesic and I didn't have any anxiety, but there's something about having something done to the eyes while fully awake that I find frightening.
I had ICL and then Lasik as part of the same planned procedure, and I had the same thoughts beforehand. The doctors actually made it sound worse than it is.
For ICL, they'd say things like, "You'll feel a little pinch" before they did something, and I barely noticed that anything was happening.
For Lasik, it was nothing. The most uncomfortable part of the procedure was while they were prepping me, and even that wasn't anything worth talking about unless you have some phobia.
It's been a few years now and I barely remember anything about the procedure beyond the room layouts and remembering thinking it went much easier than I expected.
I had an ICL procedure as well, about seven years ago. I can't say I had anywhere near OP's level of anxiety about it beforehand, but I was concerned about potential pain/discomfort and my ability to keep my eyes still enough to not ruin the procedure and blind myself.
Unfortunately I have no memory of the procedure itself, so I can't comment on any discomfort or lack thereof. I don't think I was ever told I'd be put under general anesthesia, so it seemed a bit odd at the time to walk in and out with no memory of in-between. Does anyone know if this is a common side effect (or intentional effect) of drugs commonly used during ICL implantation surgery?
I'm very nearsighted (I can't see distant objects clearly without glasses), and I know people's ability to see close objects or read diminishes with age. My plan has been to remain nearsighted in hopes I can always read without glasses. Many people have their far sight improve as they approach 40 or 50.
My problem with LASIK is the rare issues. It looks like it works fantastically when it works, but it seems to also cause fantastic problems when something goes wrong. Given my high negative prescription I just can't bring myself to do it.
Yes, even if I could overcome my phobia of things touching my eye and bring myself to have LASIK done, I would never do it, for the simple reason that my prescription keeps changing year by year.
The glasses I was prescribed a few years ago are almost useless today, so I cannot help thinking that LASIK would just correct my vision at a point in time, and then a couple of years later it would be back to glasses. Not worth the risks in the slightest.
Yes a stable prescription is one of the recommendations, mine had been unchanged for about 10 years before LASIK, and hasn't changed in the 18 or so years since then.
I'm not big on the idea of touching my eye but the numbing drops are amazing- after I'd had a couple of eyeball pressure tests I got used to the odd sensation of things touching my eyes without me flinching.
I had LASIK almost 20 years ago and for me it's been wonderful. My vision settled down to a small (about -0.5) prescription which hasn't changed since then. Legally I can drive without glasses but I basically only wear them for driving and the cinema. Multiple optometrists in the years since have told me that I have no corneal flattening, no scarring, and I've had no dryness.
Relevant to the OP it was quite a procedure to experience. I was a little concerned before but it was quite interesting to watch the corneal flat be cut open (with no feeling at all) and peeled back, then see the little laser flashes accompanied by (weirdly) a smell of burned hair. When they dropped the flap back down my vision was instantly corrected, although initially a bit cloudy.
Make sure you understand the clinical outcomes and potential side-effects.
When a cornea flap is cut, you are cutting a lot of innervation to the cornea surface, this for many people means fairly persistent dry-eyes. In addition the scaring of the cornea in the incision flap rim, can also create visual artefacts like Halos, more visible during nightime as your pupil expands and may catch some of the visual distortion of the scar tissue.
I am describing from experience so your mileage may vary. At the end of the day I would probably still go ahead with the surgery but I genuinely feel that it was not thoroughly explained to me, ahead of the surgery, what all the potential side-effects could be.
Look up central sensitization and hyperalgesia, a side effect LASIK only recently admitted to, and to which LASIK caused me and has made my life hell - and why I know about Jessica Starr, the Facebook support group, and the stromal stem cell research - all things I had to find on my own as the industry is protecting itself, indoctrinated and with no real interest in helping those they harm except for billing you to treat the purposefully mislabeled "dry eye syndrome" - where research not done by LASIK shows up to 40% of people have permanent problems after.
I am suffering from moderate dry eye now and was suffering from severe dry eye in the past.
I once had a day at work where the pain was so bad I thought: This is it. I can‘t keep on working, I will lose my job and live on disability from now on.
After some conversations with healthy people, I learned that many can not even imagine dry eye pain. One sentence stuck out: „I didn‘t know eyes could hurt.“
What I wanna say is: Don‘t risk it. Lasik can ruin your life.
Indeed, the idea of "informed consent" is complete non-sense because the layperson will have no way to understand what the potential consequences entail - and personally I was lied to multiple times by LASIK before getting the procedure done.
I am bound to my glasses I loath but at least can barely stand to wear contacts to go out once a week due to my diligent eye treatments.
I would love to do lasik! But any potential worsening of my dry eyes is not worth it. I would still sacrifice my whole fortune to have healthy eyes again. (to be clear: I did not have lasik, but I probably suffer from permanent isotretinoin damage)
I developed severe dry eyes, light sensitivity, halos, and migraines as a result of corticosteroids.
But I was able to reverse a majority of it and continue to do after learning Tribulus upregulates androgen receptors in the brain, which seems to control the aqueous liquid in our eyes.
I'm not sure what Vitamin A does to the body. From a cursory glance, it seems to affect skin androgen receptors, which would explain why it affected your eyes but if it has a similar affect, you might want to consider Tribulus.
Start off with a low dosage. Say 1 pill daily for a week, then taper off. On and off for a few months.
To be more precise, androgens (especially DHT) suppress inflammation in the meibomian glands.
I strongly recommend dissolving an oral pill of hyaluronic acid twice daily -do not swallow the pill whole, it won‘t dissolve and you will shit a tiny gelatine egg.
Besides that eye heating masks and lid-hygiene (e.g. blephacura) do wonders.
As for AR expression, I believe L-Carnitin should also improve it. Creatine should increase DHT.
But I am afraid to haphazardly increase my androgens or receptor expression because of my AGA.
Interesting. I already take hyaluronic acid for my gum disease.
But I’m not sure you understand. My dry eyes are basically gone. And it’s only been a few months. Every time I take the treatment it gets better. Not just that but the lights sensitivity, glares, and migraines are basically down to 10%.
I understand the hesitation however. I hope you continue to improve.
It does sound interesting (I also suffer from light sensitivity and glares, in winter it’s especially bad) and I will give us n=2, what‘s your dosage of TT?
You just take it a week and feel better? I can try that much.
But oral hyaluronic acid should truly be a, no, the first line treatment for dry eye and many eye doctors don‘t even knowing about it is another medical tragedy.
I was talking to my eye doc while he was performing surgery on my eyelids, just sort of chit-chatting. So I was curious, my eyesight is pretty good -- but for how long? -- and I asked, "What do you think of LASIK?"
Now, this guy has a dry sense of humor so he said, "You may notice that I'm wearing glasses ..."
A lot of people are perfectly comfortable with wearing glasses. All surgical procedures carry some non-zero risk and you have to weight the risk benefit ratio which is different for all patients.
His eyes are so dry and sore that he puts drops in every half-hour; sometimes they burn “like when you’re chopping onions.” His night vision is so poor that going out after dark is treacherous.
But Mr. Ramirez says that as far as his surgeon is concerned, he is a success story.
“My vision is considered 20/20, because I see the A’s, B’s and C’s all the way down the chart,” said Mr. Ramirez. “But I see three A’s, three B’s, three C’s.”
Listen to the nightmares - it's your subconscious trying to get a message/warning through to you.
There's a Facebook group called LASIK Complications Support Group that has 3-4 people joining it daily desperate for help from the pain they're left with. LASIK as an industrial complex has done well to suppress the problems. In 2011 one of the FDA expert advisors who voted to approve LASIK wrote a public letter to FDA asking them to immediately recall LASIK, as he said there was data they were ignoring that they shouldn't have been ignoring, and that it should never have been approved.
""She looked at me and she said, 'Dan [her husband], it's like my eyes and my brain aren't communicating like they used to. I can't process like I used to. I'm not visualizing things like I used to,'" Dan said.'
My hypothesis is that the more creative and sensitive a person is (therefore less redundancy in neural networks) the more fragile and detrimental damage/injury caused by LASIK.
The cornea is the most sensitive tissue in the body with 300-600 times the density of pain receptors than your skin, and LASIK lies - your cornea doesn't/can't heal on its own.
At least wait until the stromal stem cell treatment available clinically. Human clinical trials in India were fast tracked under compassionate grounds, the original research on animal models from University of Pittsburgh, that were highly successful healing/regenerating deep/severe scarring and chemical burns. It'll likely take anywhere from 2-5 years, with the pandemic delaying things, for it to be available in India/US with FDA approval.
I have diabetes. My glucose control at home is fairly good because almost everything I eat has a nutrition label, and I can calculate somewhat accurately exactly how much insulin I need to take. When I travel, eating in restaurants regularly, I have to make wild ass guesses as to how much carbohydrate I'm consuming. On a recent trip I had some health issues, including a significant spike in my glucose readings. My A1C went from 6.9 to 8.4 and I had noticeable vision problems. I went to my ophthalmologist and he told me that I had serious retinal bleeds, and I would need injections in both my eyes. It was serious enough that he gave me the first injection in one eye that day, and the second injection in the other eye the next day. My ophthalmologist is very good and I trust him implicitly. The procedure involved antibiotic drops in my eyes, anesthetic drops, and betadine on my eyelids before the injections. The needles used were very small gauge (they looked like 32 gauge). I didn't feel any pain; just a slight feeling of pressure.
If you have a good ophthalmologist, nowadays there is little reason to fear getting injections in your eyes.
T1D also, with not great control. I've had about a dozen injections over the last two years. A couple laser treatments and a full on surgery. The laser treatments are uncomfortable mostly because of the time it takes. The injections don't hurt at all and I barely notice them, but the little clamps they put on your eye lid to keep them open makes me uncomfortable as shit. Easily the worst part of the entire experience.
My opthalmologist doesn't use clamps; he uses his fingers to keep my eyelids from blinking. The injection only takes a few seconds to complete. I suppose it depends on your doctor's training. I've been fortunate that my opthalmologists have all been very good.
The bypass stent is interesting. Was that relatively recent? I heard of ALT and SLT, both laser therapies as I understand it, for iop conditions. I’m wondering about the effectiveness of laser therapy versus a stent.
Several years ago. Germany is extremely strong in ophthalmologic surgery - I've heard something like 3 of the top 10 eye clinics in the world are here in Berlin, though I doubt such broad measurements are really meaningful - and I think several MIGS devices were approved here a few years before elsewhere in the world.
I think laser therapies were avoided in this case because the patient was young.
I actually have IOP problems and have discussed these treatments with my dr. The answer is really it depends. In my case, the problem is that the little channels which drain the fluid are too small and get clogged by debris from my flaky retina (so it's two problems coming together to make one big problem). I could get a laser treatment to burn and widen those channels, but it generally lasts for a year or two and then you have to do it again. The high powered laser additionally can burn your retina as it diffuses through the vitreous. A stent doesn't have those problems, but it does come with some chance of complications. For now I'm managing just fine with eyedrops. It's annoying to have to put them in every day, but they definitely work. One side effect is that my iris might turn brown after some more months, sadly.
Many of us will face eye injections as we age and develop macular degeneration, where eye injections are currently the best treatment to slow and stop age based macular degeneration.
Type two diabetes can be reversed with diet, maybe those facing this procedure will get more motivation to try stricter dietary interventions.
Type two diabetes MAY be able to be reversed with diet, depending on the person. That being said, the article didn't indicate if the author was type 1 or type 2 (or both).
I personally hope I will never need an eyeball injection. Then again, there are people who volunteer to having their eyes not only immobilized and then poked and prodded repeatedly, but also bombarded with laser beams, to be able to see better: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LASIK#Operative_procedure - I have a lot of respect for anyone who is brave enough to go through this...
It may be possible (I don't know), but anesthesia comes with its own risks, and one has to balance that against what seems like an otherwise very low risk procedure.
Many patients need these injections regularly (every 4-6 weeks on some treatment protocols). My understanding is that it’s not safe to give some general anesthesia that often for as long as patients need these treatments (years).
I can sympathize. I had a seed fall into my eye while out on a walk and it wouldn't come out. Had to to to the ophthalmologist. She did local drops and took it out with forceps. It was uncomfortable and scary but she did a great job at calming me down and doing it quickly. I do think eye doctors have this kind of thing down and folks needn't worry anymore.
When I was a child I used to sometimes touch my eyeball with the tip of a pencil. Everyone I've told this to is very freaked out by it. For me it was a test of my own self control. Could I keep my eye open? Could I be steady enough to not stab my eye? You can't really see the pencil approaching in any detail. It's really out of focus. The eyeball itself doesn't really feel much. The key is not hitting your eyelashes because those are super sensitive and will cause you to blink and withdraw immediately.
I think the touching the eyeball with a cotton swab thing would work. It's not that scary once you've done it a few times. But the thought of an injection does still scare me a bit.
That's something you learn when wearing contact lenses. One day, it'll move and hide under your eyelid. You'll try to get it back without touching anything but anyway, in some seconds, you'll quickly make it to a point where you don't even care anymore touching your eyeball because you will immediately notice that it's just waaaay less painful than this folded plastic bastard.
I had 3 shots of Avastin to fix a neovascularization in my retina [1] around the end of 2010.
I have to say, it's not a very pleasant treatment. I vividly remember the image of the needle inside my eyeball and the liquid squeezing in (Avastin has a refractive index slightly different than the vitreos). But at least now I have a cool icebreaker when I get my flu shot every now and then :D
Yikes! I had a similar experience with cataract surgery. I was conked out for the initial portion, but I regained a state of half-consciousness about halfway through. I was drugged up enough that I could sit calmly while listening to the surgical team and watching them stick stuff in my eye, but it’s unnerving to remember it.
I have double vision because of previous eye surgery, and the end result is going to be a surgery where they
1. Put me under
2. Disconnect the muscles from the back of the eye sockets and reconnect them temporarily in a better location
3. Wake me up and make sure the locations are correct
4. Push the eyes to the side and reach in with a tool to permanently attach the muscles
The doctor was telling me the last part and I was staring at her like she was insane; "wait.. while I'm awake?!?". My plan is to just schedule a psychological appointment for later the same day.
Had it when I was a child! Twice, even! (18mo and 10yr old). Mine was so bad my left eye basically hung out in the corner - so incredibly thankful for the awesome pediatric ophthalmologist I had looking back on how much different my vision could have turned out (it's still far from perfect, my left eye is mostly used for periphery, but it's much better than the alternatives).
I've had it since birth I think, on my right eye, and while my left eye vision is great, I have trouble reading even very big text with my right eye. I'm a bit mad that I've never heard about this surgery until now.
I'd be a bit mad myself in that case, any board certified ophthalmologist should be well aware of the use of surgery as a treatment for strabismus; especially ones specialized in pediatric ophthalmology since it's better to take care of it at a young age while there's higher neuroplasticity (so a higher chance of the brain properly adapting to the corrected vision).
Maybe it's less of a thing in France, or it was at the time (early 2000)? You're right about neuroplasticity, even if I get it fixed now I don't know if my brain would adapt to it.
I had my first strabismus surgery in the early 80s in the UK. It was not considered unusual and was handled in the local hospital. The technique has barely changed since 1839, apparently. [1]
After surgery, there are some simple interventions, like wearing a patch covering your 'good' eye the majority of the time, so that your other eye gets wired in more. However, they recommend against this if the eye is unlikely to gain much function.
Also, do note that, unless you had stereoscopic vision before age 3, almost all specialists believe you can never gain stereoscopy, but you can probably regain some function. (There are signs that VR headsets can help people or regain stereoscopy, in some cases. [2])
> here are signs that VR headsets can help people or regain stereoscopy, in some cases.
Personal anecdote: I purchased myself a Valve Index ~2 months ago, and have noticed changes in my visual perception after use including limited stereoscopy and general improvements in my binocular fusion (as I said above, my left eye mostly provides limited peripheral vision - but following a VR session I will see my field of view expand on the left side and more of that eye is now being used). At 30 years old this is something I never would have believed possible, especially given it never happened following my two surgeries when I was younger.
Do I think VR is going to restore my limited binocular function to what it would otherwise be at my age? Not with my corrected vision in my left eye being so much worse than my right, full binocular fusion just isn't going to happen (I can force it and it gives me a migraine within minutes).
Do I think there's more than "signs" that it can help people with less severe gaps between their corrected vision (re)gain full binocular fusion and stereoscopy though? If I can see improvements I have no doubt that somebody with a less severe case can get back what they should have had in the first place.
Indeed there is! I had it in the mid 80s when I was a child. They put me completely under. My understanding is that today it's not uncommon to do it under a local anesthetic so they can test the correctness of the alignment in real time.
> The doctor was telling me the last part and I was staring at her like she was insane; "wait.. while I'm awake?!?
Holy hell, NOPE. I'm very glad I was under the whole time when I had my strabismus surgeries as a child, because I'm pretty sure I would be psychologically scarred for life.
My mother accidentally put mosquito repellant in my eyes as a child (my father had put it in an eye dropper to carry hunting and didn't label the bottle)
To this day anything that messes with my eyes freaks me out. That little puffer thing at the eye doctor? That thing is my nemesis. I won't wear contacts. Lasik is out of the question because on top of this phobia I also have CP and I get super spastic when stressed.
Having to get monthly injections in my eyeball would be pure nightmare fuel for me. I'm not sure which I'd fear more, that, or going blind.
I sympathize, that must be terrible. Your story reminds me of something my wife did a long time ago. She wanted to put sunscreen on our baby daughter's face, and she had the bright idea to blow in her face so she'd close her eyes, and then quickly spritz with the spray.
That worked out exactly like you are probably thinking. Fortunately there doesn't seem to be a resulting phobia, 11 years on.
I tried contacts many years ago, and after two months of struggling, it still took me over an hour every day to get them in, so I gave up on that.
I still remember the day I first heard about Radial Keratotomy in the 70s. I could not imagine how anybody could consciously allow a scalpel anywhere near their eyeball.
Even today with LASIK/PRK, the whole idea of voluntary eye surgery is just a total nope for me.
(Ophthalmologist):
To any future HN reader scared by those intraocular injections: don't fear them. I'm on my way to the operating room and going to perform cataract surgery under topical (=eyedrops only) anesthesia, as I always do, and as most surgeons today do. Patients won't feel anything except water slightly flowing on the eye surface.
The surgical knife is 2.2mm wide : the 25 Gauge needle is 0.260mm wide. Anesthetic eyedrop work amazingly.
Patients can actually feel the eye speculum (pro tip: open wide both eyes++, it will be less disturbing) and the itchy feeling of Betadine, and the touch of the needle : that's usually all.
Don't postpone eye injections because of fear: if it is indicated, there is usually some degree of emergency.
How are you using the surgical knife in your intravitreal injection procedure?
Any thoughts on how often patients can see the needle? I always thought it was out of the visual axis, but some reports in this thread mention seeing it !?
I've had eye injections three times now and never saw the needle. I can't imagine you you could, since the eye can't focus on the needle since it's inside the lens which is necessary to focus what you see outside the eye onto the retina. I don't see how the fovea could receive a focused image of the needle without help from the lens.
I was born with cataracts and had the natural lenses in my eyes removed when I was days old. Fast forward to 2018 and I had intraocular lens implants (I believe it's called) under general anaesthetic. Went fine for the most part, however I had to go to A&E because the pressure in one of my eyes was ~65.
The cause was blood leaking into the back of one of my eyes (if I remember correctly), and they had to use the drops you mentioned. At the time I was a bit concerned with what they were going to do, but obviously was willing to have whatever done to get back to normal.
I'm still impressed by how well those drops worked. And, yeah. All I could see was red (blood), and all I felt was just a prick of something sharp. Was done within probably 10-15 minutes.
My fun fun eye surgery was to remove a stye that had hardened into a chalazion. This didn't involve any actual needle/scalpel work on the eye itself, but did require flipping my eyelid inside-out and cutting into the back with a scalpel. The local anaesthetic worked great. A side effect of the eyelid-flip (I think) was that my eye rolled into a position that wasn't seeing anything.
Overall, it was kinda like going to the dentist, but I could keep chatting with the doctor through the whole thing. The ability to keep communicating was great for keeping things chill. (However, one must be careful not to laugh while there's a scalpel near one's eye.)
I used to experience blepharitis and occasional sties, but of all things what cleared everything up was tea tree shampoo and face wash with tea tree oil.
Keep any tea tree oil product well away from the eyelashes. It's not actually necessary to treat it there, and you'll regret it if you get any of the product in your eyes.
Mine was caused by doing stressful grad school things, keeping ridiculously bad sleep schedules, and staring at a too-bright monitor for dozens of hours per day. These added up to rubbing my eyes a lot, which led directly to styes.
After reducing my monitor brightness, the problem went away.
You can't tell me not to fear it. I have a HUGE eye phobia; I can't even open my eyes under water. It doesn't matter what anyone says, it isn't a rational thing.
This is so bizarre to me, to be an adult and just unable to control your own body? I guess I'm lucky to not have this issue, but man it's so foreign to me that you can't even open your eyes under water.
Would you also not struggle to touch a hot stove? I think it is a similar feeling. Genuine question too - I've got a friend who is comedically brave and doesn't experience pain the way that other people do who might express a similar idea. He just already knows that its unusual and not the default.
That’s an interesting idea. I think I’d be able to touch it, I know I’d dislike it immensely though.
But this question helped me clarify my thoughts around this more. It’s the distinction between rational fear vs irrational fear. Assuming clean water the fear of opening your eyes underwater is irrational, it’s not going to hurt you or do any long term damage. The example from the story about getting an injection on your eye is maybe someplace in between, needle in the eye is much more invasive, but also deemed medically necessary where the risk of not doing it is greater than the risk of doing it.
Not having the ability to override your own emotions in cases where they are irrational is interesting to me. It’s like giving agency to an “external other” that you have no control over.
I seriously doubt you can rationally override your own emotions at any situation. And you should doubt that too, it can make you biased to think you're being rational without noticing you're not.
If I absolutely needed to open my eyes under water for an important reason, I likely could. That is just not a common situation and I haven't encountered it.
I don't think not opening my eyes under water is THAT irrational, really. My reason for keeping my eyes closed (my fear and not liking the feeling of water touching my eyes) is greater than my need to open my eyes under water (which has been no real reason so far).
Well, I think you're getting close, but you still seem to be coming at this from a place of presumed superiority, mostly due to the separation of fears into 'rational' vs 'irrational'. Part of TFA is that they were not given enough information - is it irrational to fear some one stabbing your eye just because they are also confident that it will be for your betterment? From your water example it is clear also that you've learned that some water is safe to open your eyes in and built confidence in that knowledge - what if you hadn't had those experiences? Where I grew up the water was painfully cold, frequently polluted, and silty enough that I wouldn't be surprised if you got a scratch on your eye from doing that. I learned to open my eyes in the water in a public pool and discovered that I could do so with only minor irritation. If the chemical balance had been different that probably would not have been the case.
I think another perspective that might be helpful is to think of this in terms of the flinch reflex. Anyone can control theirs (this is an emotional process, sure), but the difficulty involves how sensitive they are, how strong the input is, how necessary they deem the action, and how afraid they are of potential consequences. Again, I don't think 'rational' or 'irrational' comes into play here or explains anything extra, I think in your case for example you are probably not jumpy (overly sensitive), and confident that your outcomes will be acceptable. I think the author was probably a little jumpy and was not confident in the outcome of an eye-poke.
Phobias are very common. Almost everyone has one, like fear of heights or being trapped in a small space. The fear is not rational, and the phobic is well aware of that, but simply knowing it's irrational doesn't help rid you of it.
I think you might be overestimating what I mean by "can't" open my eyes under water. I think the 'touching a hot stove' metaphor is a good one. It feels like that to me.
Yeah if you are afraid to open your eyes underwater there is no way your letting a needle come near your eye when you are conscious and can see it. I have never heard of this eye phobia very interesting
I don't open my eyes either but mostly in swimming pools full of chlorine. Didn't know it was a phobia, because all I'm trying to do is avoid annoying eye irritation.
Talking about eye surgery is like nails on a chalkboard to me. I don’t want to talk about yours, let alone think about mine.
I have joked with my friends and family about giving them a limited power of attorney that in the case of eye or testicular surgery they can dose me with tranquilizers or anti anxiety meds without my knowledge and deliver me to the surgeon, having not told me that my surgery is today.
They’re not sure if I’m kidding, and neither am I.
Have you tried watching videos of surgeries to see if you can acclimatize your fear? Starting with something trivial like a skin suture or mole removal might be tolerable. Exposure therapy is an established way to gradually inoculate yourself against a fear that seems inescapably overwhelming.
> Have you tried watching videos of surgeries to see if you can acclimatize your fear?
If you're anxious enough already, then: Don't. Ever. Do. This. Videos don't help, at all. And your brain is constantly thinking about ways things might have gone wrong, while simultaneously looking (no pun) for comments from people explaining how exactly things went wrong for them!
I'm the same way. I even have a hard time with drops despite using them regularly for years. I understand perfectly well that it's completely irrational yet I have not found a way to gain control over it.
Pre-surgery benzodiazepines might fix that and are given to particularly anxious patients - I was terrified going into a surgery and was given those, ten minutes later there was total relief. I can easily understand the addiction risk (and haven't had them since), but for acute anxiety it was wild how much of a relief it was.
I went from nervous with fairly intense physical symptoms to being totally chill.
The trick is to take the entire day off of work, take xanax, and do the motions without panicking.
The feeling you're describing is literally panic from an anxiety disorder. If it it's interfering with your adult responsibilities (like going to the doctor), that's the right time to use medication to get through it.
My toddler recently scratched my cornea with a finger, and while I was completely traumatized, I was able to go to the doctor and allow them to treat me. The phobia is not quite debilitating, just strong.
I have pretty high pain tolerance, but I can't handle eye injuries. I had a scratch on my cornea back in high school and I still remember how there was no ignoring it and nothing that alleviated the pain. Got a corneal ulcer a few months ago from the fancy 24/7 contacts the optometrist sold me. It wasn't near as bad as I remember the scratch being, but I definitely called into work and hid under the covers for a full day.
What happens if a patient accidentally looks left or right during the surgery? I would be afraid of subconsciously/accidentally looking one way or an other during the surgery, but would that not cause a catastrophe?
I've had multiple eye surgeries. Prep includes putting lidocaine jelly over the eye, which will immobilize your eye from movement during the procedure.
This is also my greatest fear. The lidocaine isn't much consolation as it seems like it could easily wear off or they don't get the dose right and you move you eye.. the stuff of nightmares.
Same here. I've had surgeries for cataracts and detached retina (2 of each). Eye surgery has outstanding outcomes and involves virtually no physical discomfort.
I'm profoundly grateful for modern medical technology, as I would otherwise likely be blind in both eyes.
The needle they use is short and does not extend very far inside the eyeball. (No, you can't see the needle.) If the eye jerks while the needle is inserted, it won't move far. Eyeball tissue is thick and strong and the presence of the needle will limit the eye's motion to only about 2-3 mm, doing no damage. The needle enters the side of the eyeball, peripheral to the sensory part of the retina.
An eye flinch is exactly what happened to me when I got my latest injection of VEGF-inhibitor to counteract macular degeneration due to 20+ years of diabetes. It was no big thing, just a little disconcerting.
Thanks for this! Mind you, as much as I understand the importance and need of such procedures, that doesn't make me any less terrified. I've had all sorts of absurd injuries over the years all over my body and I am in no ways frightened or disguised of any bodily fluids. That said, I am terrified of the idea of such a procedure. Same with dental work - I abhor the feeling of anything being done to my teeth. Getting a wisdom tooth pulled out was arguably the most terrifying thing I've ever experienced. A needle going into my eyeball wouldn't feel any less terrifying.
Jesus Christ, you have managed to make it worse than I thought it would be (and I expected it to be very bad). This is the stuff of nightmares, I would never do this while I was conscious. Hell, it would be better if there was pain.
One of our friends has been having monthly eye injections for macular degeneration for a couple years. At this point, I'm more freaked out than she is.
No offense to you, but this attitude is exactly the problem here. I know it's not rational to be very concerned about this, but I also know that the entire duration of that procedure, I will be thinking "KNIFE. IN. EYE." In the world I normally inhabit, knives should not ever be in eyes, so this is an incredibly stressful thought, stressful enough that I might do something crazy like MOVE WHILE A KNIFE IS IN MY EYE. This thought is even more stressful.
The best advice for me personally is probably to breath deeply and try to relax.
This. I have an extremely strong blink reflex which I cannot overcome. The one time they tried to put contact lenses in my eye it took them 15 minutes to get them in and another half an hour to get them back out. It was one of the most stressful experiences I have ever had. It was over 30 years ago and it still makes me shudder to think about it. There is no way that I can possibly rational-ize my way out of that stress and convince myself that injections or surgery would not be ten times worse.
Blink reflex doesn’t really matter. If it’s anything like my Lasik surgery, they insert devices (like Clockwork orange) to make it impossible to blink — who wouldn’t have the urge to blink when something is approaching their eye? It’s an involuntary reflex for self preservation. They also put a ring in my eye that made it impossible for me to move my eye whatsoever regardless of my urge to look away.
Yeah, I get that. The issue is not that it wouldn't work, the issue is that I think it would be more traumatic for me then a normal person, and I base that assessment on the fact that putting contacts in is more traumatic for me than a normal person (like "extremely traumatic" vs "something so non-traumatic that they voluntarily do it to themselves on a regular basis").
I wore contact lenses for 10 years, before getting lasik.
The first time, it took 30 minutes to get them in.
For the first few months, I really struggled. Eventually it got easier, and in a short time I could put them in first time, every time
We're taught from a young age to not put things in our eyes, and it does take time to overcome that. The thought of it might be extremely traumatic now, but if you did it every day, you'd find that disappearing quickly.
> We're taught from a young age to not put things in our eyes, and it does take time to overcome that.
I don't think we're really "taught" this, but is jut part of our innate programming. I never taught my cat anything, and I'm fairly sure if I were to put anything in her eye she would be less than happy about that, even if it doesn't hurt her.
I certainly never recall my mother telling me off for putting things in my eyes.
Well, by looking at all the answers, I obviously missed my point. Sorry for that :-) (I'm not a native english speaker as you noticed so it may also explain the misunderstanding ?)
Of course this is not how I talk to my patients... I usually explain the cataract surgery procedure as follows : "the only thing you will feel is water on the side of your face, and the only thing you will see is a very powerful light. You won't see anything scary and you won't feel any pain. We will talk during the surgery and when it will be over, you will tell me that you shouldn't have been afraid". And that's how it goes.
The eye injection procedure is even faster and painless.
Sorry for the gruesome details I gave.
Also, yes, don't look any Youtube videos, because your experience will be totally different than watching the procedure. Youtube videos are scary.
I am Deaf. How would you proceed if you need to do eye surgery on a Deaf person. I think they need to be knocked out. First, they care about their eyes more than other people and second you can't communicate with them during the surgery.
My own experience. I had to do an examination of my nose and throat with a camera on a stick (don't know the exact terminology). The doctor wanted to tell me something and I couldn't react because I couldn't turn the head to lipread and finally I tried to tear out the stick out of my nose and I struggled with the doctor and got a heavy slap on my hand.
I had a detached retina a couple years ago and it was super scary experience. I am back at 20/20 with some wonderful work by my doctors (and some intraocular injections, for sure), although I am terrified of it happening again with permanent vision loss
I've been Type 1 diabetic for 10 years. Even though my glucose control is excellent over that period (A1C never >6.5%) I've never been able to shake the latent fear that it's a matter of time before I develop complications like retinopathy. What sucks hard is that it's not _just_ determined by insulin and glucose. Exercise, stress, activity level, protein/fat intake, illness, and more can all cause massive variability in glucose levels and insulin sensitivity. Therefore my most successful blanket strategy for glucose control is keeping as consistent a routine as possible: eating the same foods, doing the same activities - at the same time, always exercising regularly, and avoiding spontaneity.
While I've always had anxiety, it's only become worse over the years given the fear of having issues in both day-to-day blood sugar management and in being diagnosed with long term complications. Living with T1D often feels like a case study in applied stoicism.
Dr Bernstein is a T1D diagnosed back in the '46. He followed the typical diabetes advice and still developed complications to his diabetes. He was an engineer and felt like the biggest problem (at his time) was that diabetics couldn't tell what was happening with their blood sugar so he started doing whatever he could to gain access to a blood sugar monitor (rare and only owned by doctors at the time) and once he got one he started doing what engineers do, testing adjusting and tracking results. He realized that complications from diabetes is entirely caused by blood sugar, and that carbs are the largest thing that affects blood sugar. A low carb high fat/protein diet would have minimal effect on blood sugar levels. He tried to advocate that everyone should follow this diet and also have access to a blood sugar monitor. But the medical industry wouldn't give him any mind, because he's an engineer not a doctor. So this dude went out and became a doctor, and has completely changed the lives of diabetics everywhere thanks to his work.
Anyways, tangent about how awesome this guy is aside. He says if you maintain an A1C of 5.5 you will not suffer the effects of diabetes. The best way to do that, he recommends, is to eat a low carb high fat diet in order to minimize spikes in blood sugar and avoid needing to take excess insulin.
Yep, he's an inspiring guy and I've read his book. The fact that he's lived well into his 80s with T1D gives me hope that folks people can have a pretty good prognosis.
I also follow a low carb diet, which is how I've been able to have good glucose control myself.
This is a pretty common procedure that many are unaware of because it largely affects the elderly.
Around 2.5 million ocular injections are performed a year in the US and the busiest retina specialists perform as many as 50 per day.[1]
As many as 11 million people in the United States have some form of age-related macular degeneration. This number is expected to double to nearly 22 million by 2050.
Many patients require periodic injections for the rest of their lives
I've been getting these eyeball injections this year. (1 eye, every 6 or so weeks).
Bedside manner of the doctors and technicians is the most important aspect of it. I have a Doc who wonderfully calm and hires a pretty good staff.
One thing the writer doesn't mention is how long all this takes. For me it's usually 2 hours of my time. I go in, get my eye scanned, then dilation drops are applied, then I wait 45 minutes for them to kick in. After that they, bring me back into a room and start applying various things to my eye: antihistamine drops, numbing agent, something to sterilize my eye, and an antibiotic (I think). All the eye prep takes 20 minutes or so. Then the doc steps in to do his thing, and that takes all of 5-10 minutes.
For those curious, you don't see the needle, you end up looking toward the bridge of your nose and the doc comes from the opposite direction. You don't see it inside your eyeball either. You do see the fluid stream in and it dissipates quickly. If there is a bubble in the solution you end up with one or a few black dots floating around your vision, those dissipate in a day or two. You don't feel anything other than a little pressure on your eye. Afterward, you might have some eye pain. This depends on how good of a stick it was and how your allergies are doing. Sometimes you are relatively pain free afterward, but other times it feels like your eye got walloped and your eye will be sore for a few days.
> We briefly discussed my anxiety, but his immediate solution was the anti-anxiety drug. I made it clear that I was worried about the procedure and wanted to know more details about it. He didn’t want to explain the procedure beyond “we’ll inject medication that will help preserve your vision”, and he avoided answering repeated questions. Maybe he tried to shield me from the details and not confirm my worst fears.
Based on stories I've heard from emotionally immature doctor friends and my own experience being a little more confrontational with my doctors, he most likely didn't know the answers to your questions and was too proud to say, "I don't know."
It seems many forget that, at the end of the day, doctors are people, too, with just as many flaws and emotions as the rest of us. It's unfortunate that this affects quality of care, but it's a fact of life in every industry.
The best thing you can do for yourself in such a situation is to prepare yourself before appointments and remember the humanity of doctors during appointments. If your doctor is being dodgy about answering questions, let them know that it's okay if they don't know and that you won't think anything less of them for it. If it's an urgent matter, suggest looking it up together so that your doctor can provide context for whatever research you manage to find.
A doctor is like a contractor you've hired to inspect and maintain your body. As with any contractor, if you want them to do a good job, you have to work with them, as a team.
Perhaps worth mentioning that medical malpractice lawsuits are a devastating possibility for doctors (because of license suspension), especially in the US, and so they may have sensible reasons to specifically avoid the phrases "I don't know" or "I'm sorry" even if they're empathetic people.
I had to have my tonsil biopsied a few years back. With my mouth agape and a six-inch needle down my throat, my ENT quipped:
> I did this once, I learned a lot.
Surprisingly that was the most comforting thing I could hear. To know that the ENT had enough confidence and presence-of-mind in his procedure to crack a joke told me I was in good hands, even if those hands were holding a six-inch needle down my throat.
I had a laser iridotomy a few weeks ago for "narrow angles". Other than feeling like you're in a staring contest with Locutus of Borg, it was quick and painless.
> Surely other patients must have asked about [this traumatic experience]? Or commented on it?
I find myself having this reaction all too frequently after traumatic encounters with the healthcare system.
I honestly don't know the answer.
Do other patients really not communicate when they have a bad experience? Or do they communicate and the system is simply incapable of listening or reacting?
I’m curious why it seems they were seemingly conservative with the anti-anxiety meds? A large enough benzo dose would turn this from the worst day ever to a relaxing experience in just a few minutes.
190 comments
[ 3.7 ms ] story [ 222 ms ] threadWell done to the author for not giving up.
This author is a king.
If you get the dilation your eye's will look like you are possessed by a ghost, for the rest of the day, and you might scare children ;).
my wife, on the other hand, is a fucking champ when it comes to anything eye related. she has keratoconus[0] and not only she has to do a ton of eye exams every year, but she has to wear rigid contact lenses whenever she's awake.
[0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keratoconus
> it felt soooo bad!
It shouldn't. You are not even supposed to feel them, in fact, some people fall asleep with them even if they know they shouldn't. If you suffered, even if it was your first try, it's probably due to presence of dust between your lens and your eye, and I agree that this is super painful. But that's not the normal sensation, and that's not an issue as long as you remove the lens and retry after some cleaning.
Going in, I'd imagined the best possible outcome. This, of course, didn't bear much relationship to what followed.
No doubt some people would have steeled themselves first given more information. (And perhaps been more stoic!)
One of the advantages of giving details is that it builds a bit of a trust relationship with the doctor.
I already had some minor surgery with local anesthesic and I didn't have any anxiety, but there's something about having something done to the eyes while fully awake that I find frightening.
For ICL, they'd say things like, "You'll feel a little pinch" before they did something, and I barely noticed that anything was happening.
For Lasik, it was nothing. The most uncomfortable part of the procedure was while they were prepping me, and even that wasn't anything worth talking about unless you have some phobia.
It's been a few years now and I barely remember anything about the procedure beyond the room layouts and remembering thinking it went much easier than I expected.
Unfortunately I have no memory of the procedure itself, so I can't comment on any discomfort or lack thereof. I don't think I was ever told I'd be put under general anesthesia, so it seemed a bit odd at the time to walk in and out with no memory of in-between. Does anyone know if this is a common side effect (or intentional effect) of drugs commonly used during ICL implantation surgery?
I can't even put contact lenses in my eye myself, but getting operated was a breeze. I have been glasses free for 8 yrs now - its great!
I'm very nearsighted (I can't see distant objects clearly without glasses), and I know people's ability to see close objects or read diminishes with age. My plan has been to remain nearsighted in hopes I can always read without glasses. Many people have their far sight improve as they approach 40 or 50.
I've read enough horror stories to know it's not worth the risk, especially when my optometrist told me my vision would worsen anyways in 10 years.
The glasses I was prescribed a few years ago are almost useless today, so I cannot help thinking that LASIK would just correct my vision at a point in time, and then a couple of years later it would be back to glasses. Not worth the risks in the slightest.
I'm not big on the idea of touching my eye but the numbing drops are amazing- after I'd had a couple of eyeball pressure tests I got used to the odd sensation of things touching my eyes without me flinching.
Relevant to the OP it was quite a procedure to experience. I was a little concerned before but it was quite interesting to watch the corneal flat be cut open (with no feeling at all) and peeled back, then see the little laser flashes accompanied by (weirdly) a smell of burned hair. When they dropped the flap back down my vision was instantly corrected, although initially a bit cloudy.
When a cornea flap is cut, you are cutting a lot of innervation to the cornea surface, this for many people means fairly persistent dry-eyes. In addition the scaring of the cornea in the incision flap rim, can also create visual artefacts like Halos, more visible during nightime as your pupil expands and may catch some of the visual distortion of the scar tissue.
I am describing from experience so your mileage may vary. At the end of the day I would probably still go ahead with the surgery but I genuinely feel that it was not thoroughly explained to me, ahead of the surgery, what all the potential side-effects could be.
Thanks for the heads-up, I'll make sure I'm OK with the potential side effects if I go forward with it.
I once had a day at work where the pain was so bad I thought: This is it. I can‘t keep on working, I will lose my job and live on disability from now on.
After some conversations with healthy people, I learned that many can not even imagine dry eye pain. One sentence stuck out: „I didn‘t know eyes could hurt.“
What I wanna say is: Don‘t risk it. Lasik can ruin your life.
I would love to do lasik! But any potential worsening of my dry eyes is not worth it. I would still sacrifice my whole fortune to have healthy eyes again. (to be clear: I did not have lasik, but I probably suffer from permanent isotretinoin damage)
But I was able to reverse a majority of it and continue to do after learning Tribulus upregulates androgen receptors in the brain, which seems to control the aqueous liquid in our eyes.
I'm not sure what Vitamin A does to the body. From a cursory glance, it seems to affect skin androgen receptors, which would explain why it affected your eyes but if it has a similar affect, you might want to consider Tribulus.
Start off with a low dosage. Say 1 pill daily for a week, then taper off. On and off for a few months.
I strongly recommend dissolving an oral pill of hyaluronic acid twice daily -do not swallow the pill whole, it won‘t dissolve and you will shit a tiny gelatine egg.
Besides that eye heating masks and lid-hygiene (e.g. blephacura) do wonders.
As for AR expression, I believe L-Carnitin should also improve it. Creatine should increase DHT.
But I am afraid to haphazardly increase my androgens or receptor expression because of my AGA.
But I’m not sure you understand. My dry eyes are basically gone. And it’s only been a few months. Every time I take the treatment it gets better. Not just that but the lights sensitivity, glares, and migraines are basically down to 10%.
I understand the hesitation however. I hope you continue to improve.
You just take it a week and feel better? I can try that much.
But oral hyaluronic acid should truly be a, no, the first line treatment for dry eye and many eye doctors don‘t even knowing about it is another medical tragedy.
Now, this guy has a dry sense of humor so he said, "You may notice that I'm wearing glasses ..."
And I guess that was all of the input I needed.
But Mr. Ramirez says that as far as his surgeon is concerned, he is a success story.
“My vision is considered 20/20, because I see the A’s, B’s and C’s all the way down the chart,” said Mr. Ramirez. “But I see three A’s, three B’s, three C’s.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/11/well/lasik-complications-...There's a Facebook group called LASIK Complications Support Group that has 3-4 people joining it daily desperate for help from the pain they're left with. LASIK as an industrial complex has done well to suppress the problems. In 2011 one of the FDA expert advisors who voted to approve LASIK wrote a public letter to FDA asking them to immediately recall LASIK, as he said there was data they were ignoring that they shouldn't have been ignoring, and that it should never have been approved.
A story of suicide post LASIK (actually specifically she did "SMILE") of a news reporter Jessica Starr - many articles on her, but here's two: https://www.ctvnews.ca/w5/families-deal-with-repercussions-a... + https://www.fox2detroit.com/news/in-her-own-words-jessica-st...:
""She looked at me and she said, 'Dan [her husband], it's like my eyes and my brain aren't communicating like they used to. I can't process like I used to. I'm not visualizing things like I used to,'" Dan said.'
My hypothesis is that the more creative and sensitive a person is (therefore less redundancy in neural networks) the more fragile and detrimental damage/injury caused by LASIK.
The cornea is the most sensitive tissue in the body with 300-600 times the density of pain receptors than your skin, and LASIK lies - your cornea doesn't/can't heal on its own.
At least wait until the stromal stem cell treatment available clinically. Human clinical trials in India were fast tracked under compassionate grounds, the original research on animal models from University of Pittsburgh, that were highly successful healing/regenerating deep/severe scarring and chemical burns. It'll likely take anywhere from 2-5 years, with the pandemic delaying things, for it to be available in India/US with FDA approval.
If you have a good ophthalmologist, nowadays there is little reason to fear getting injections in your eyes.
Whats good vs. bad?
[1] https://www.cdc.gov/diabetes/managing/managing-blood-sugar/a...
https://www.google.ca/amp/s/www.hopkinsmedicine.org/health/w...
- The aforementioned gas bubble
- The same but an oil bubble, when you need the pressure to remain there for longer (and a second surgery to remove it)
- A 1mm bypass stent to reduce intra-ocular pressure
I think laser therapies were avoided in this case because the patient was young.
Type two diabetes can be reversed with diet, maybe those facing this procedure will get more motivation to try stricter dietary interventions.
I think the touching the eyeball with a cotton swab thing would work. It's not that scary once you've done it a few times. But the thought of an injection does still scare me a bit.
I really fear you.
I have to say, it's not a very pleasant treatment. I vividly remember the image of the needle inside my eyeball and the liquid squeezing in (Avastin has a refractive index slightly different than the vitreos). But at least now I have a cool icebreaker when I get my flu shot every now and then :D
[1] - https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/17011951/
1. Put me under
2. Disconnect the muscles from the back of the eye sockets and reconnect them temporarily in a better location
3. Wake me up and make sure the locations are correct
4. Push the eyes to the side and reach in with a tool to permanently attach the muscles
The doctor was telling me the last part and I was staring at her like she was insane; "wait.. while I'm awake?!?". My plan is to just schedule a psychological appointment for later the same day.
Apparently yes:
https://eyewiki.aao.org/Strabismus_Surgery,_Horizontal
After surgery, there are some simple interventions, like wearing a patch covering your 'good' eye the majority of the time, so that your other eye gets wired in more. However, they recommend against this if the eye is unlikely to gain much function.
Also, do note that, unless you had stereoscopic vision before age 3, almost all specialists believe you can never gain stereoscopy, but you can probably regain some function. (There are signs that VR headsets can help people or regain stereoscopy, in some cases. [2])
[1] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/6389657/ [2] https://www.ingentaconnect.com/contentone/ist/ei/2018/000020...
Personal anecdote: I purchased myself a Valve Index ~2 months ago, and have noticed changes in my visual perception after use including limited stereoscopy and general improvements in my binocular fusion (as I said above, my left eye mostly provides limited peripheral vision - but following a VR session I will see my field of view expand on the left side and more of that eye is now being used). At 30 years old this is something I never would have believed possible, especially given it never happened following my two surgeries when I was younger.
Do I think VR is going to restore my limited binocular function to what it would otherwise be at my age? Not with my corrected vision in my left eye being so much worse than my right, full binocular fusion just isn't going to happen (I can force it and it gives me a migraine within minutes).
Do I think there's more than "signs" that it can help people with less severe gaps between their corrected vision (re)gain full binocular fusion and stereoscopy though? If I can see improvements I have no doubt that somebody with a less severe case can get back what they should have had in the first place.
Holy hell, NOPE. I'm very glad I was under the whole time when I had my strabismus surgeries as a child, because I'm pretty sure I would be psychologically scarred for life.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32293830/
To this day anything that messes with my eyes freaks me out. That little puffer thing at the eye doctor? That thing is my nemesis. I won't wear contacts. Lasik is out of the question because on top of this phobia I also have CP and I get super spastic when stressed.
Having to get monthly injections in my eyeball would be pure nightmare fuel for me. I'm not sure which I'd fear more, that, or going blind.
That worked out exactly like you are probably thinking. Fortunately there doesn't seem to be a resulting phobia, 11 years on.
I tried contacts many years ago, and after two months of struggling, it still took me over an hour every day to get them in, so I gave up on that.
I still remember the day I first heard about Radial Keratotomy in the 70s. I could not imagine how anybody could consciously allow a scalpel anywhere near their eyeball.
Even today with LASIK/PRK, the whole idea of voluntary eye surgery is just a total nope for me.
Don't postpone eye injections because of fear: if it is indicated, there is usually some degree of emergency.
How are you using the surgical knife in your intravitreal injection procedure?
Any thoughts on how often patients can see the needle? I always thought it was out of the visual axis, but some reports in this thread mention seeing it !?
I'm still impressed by how well those drops worked. And, yeah. All I could see was red (blood), and all I felt was just a prick of something sharp. Was done within probably 10-15 minutes.
Overall, it was kinda like going to the dentist, but I could keep chatting with the doctor through the whole thing. The ability to keep communicating was great for keeping things chill. (However, one must be careful not to laugh while there's a scalpel near one's eye.)
https://www.healthline.com/health/eyelash-mites
Keep any tea tree oil product well away from the eyelashes. It's not actually necessary to treat it there, and you'll regret it if you get any of the product in your eyes.
After reducing my monitor brightness, the problem went away.
An attendant had to force the eyelid down while the stye was lanced with a scalpel.
For some reason, the anaesthetic didn't take effect.
Pain.
But this question helped me clarify my thoughts around this more. It’s the distinction between rational fear vs irrational fear. Assuming clean water the fear of opening your eyes underwater is irrational, it’s not going to hurt you or do any long term damage. The example from the story about getting an injection on your eye is maybe someplace in between, needle in the eye is much more invasive, but also deemed medically necessary where the risk of not doing it is greater than the risk of doing it.
Not having the ability to override your own emotions in cases where they are irrational is interesting to me. It’s like giving agency to an “external other” that you have no control over.
I don't think not opening my eyes under water is THAT irrational, really. My reason for keeping my eyes closed (my fear and not liking the feeling of water touching my eyes) is greater than my need to open my eyes under water (which has been no real reason so far).
I think another perspective that might be helpful is to think of this in terms of the flinch reflex. Anyone can control theirs (this is an emotional process, sure), but the difficulty involves how sensitive they are, how strong the input is, how necessary they deem the action, and how afraid they are of potential consequences. Again, I don't think 'rational' or 'irrational' comes into play here or explains anything extra, I think in your case for example you are probably not jumpy (overly sensitive), and confident that your outcomes will be acceptable. I think the author was probably a little jumpy and was not confident in the outcome of an eye-poke.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_phobias
I have joked with my friends and family about giving them a limited power of attorney that in the case of eye or testicular surgery they can dose me with tranquilizers or anti anxiety meds without my knowledge and deliver me to the surgeon, having not told me that my surgery is today.
They’re not sure if I’m kidding, and neither am I.
If you're anxious enough already, then: Don't. Ever. Do. This. Videos don't help, at all. And your brain is constantly thinking about ways things might have gone wrong, while simultaneously looking (no pun) for comments from people explaining how exactly things went wrong for them!
They didn't. They said don't postpone your treatment and suffer irreversible vision loss, due to fear.
I went from nervous with fairly intense physical symptoms to being totally chill.
The feeling you're describing is literally panic from an anxiety disorder. If it it's interfering with your adult responsibilities (like going to the doctor), that's the right time to use medication to get through it.
Although I will say having my eyes immobilized also sounds scary. And I feel like I would constantly be "checking" that I still can't move them.
I'm profoundly grateful for modern medical technology, as I would otherwise likely be blind in both eyes.
An eye flinch is exactly what happened to me when I got my latest injection of VEGF-inhibitor to counteract macular degeneration due to 20+ years of diabetes. It was no big thing, just a little disconcerting.
Better than the alternative.
The best advice for me personally is probably to breath deeply and try to relax.
Milk? That’s just cow blood that goes through one weird sweat gland. Honey? That’s bee vomit.
The first time, it took 30 minutes to get them in.
For the first few months, I really struggled. Eventually it got easier, and in a short time I could put them in first time, every time
We're taught from a young age to not put things in our eyes, and it does take time to overcome that. The thought of it might be extremely traumatic now, but if you did it every day, you'd find that disappearing quickly.
I don't think we're really "taught" this, but is jut part of our innate programming. I never taught my cat anything, and I'm fairly sure if I were to put anything in her eye she would be less than happy about that, even if it doesn't hurt her.
I certainly never recall my mother telling me off for putting things in my eyes.
Of course this is not how I talk to my patients... I usually explain the cataract surgery procedure as follows : "the only thing you will feel is water on the side of your face, and the only thing you will see is a very powerful light. You won't see anything scary and you won't feel any pain. We will talk during the surgery and when it will be over, you will tell me that you shouldn't have been afraid". And that's how it goes.
The eye injection procedure is even faster and painless.
Sorry for the gruesome details I gave.
Also, yes, don't look any Youtube videos, because your experience will be totally different than watching the procedure. Youtube videos are scary.
My own experience. I had to do an examination of my nose and throat with a camera on a stick (don't know the exact terminology). The doctor wanted to tell me something and I couldn't react because I couldn't turn the head to lipread and finally I tried to tear out the stick out of my nose and I struggled with the doctor and got a heavy slap on my hand.
The experience was entirely painless, tooth cleaning at the dentist is more uncomfortable.
Don't act like you don't take a chance on every medical procedure. Most of the times it's OK, but sometimes it's not. Then what?
Whether or not that is correct..it’s hard to overcome something like that
While I've always had anxiety, it's only become worse over the years given the fear of having issues in both day-to-day blood sugar management and in being diagnosed with long term complications. Living with T1D often feels like a case study in applied stoicism.
Dr Bernstein is a T1D diagnosed back in the '46. He followed the typical diabetes advice and still developed complications to his diabetes. He was an engineer and felt like the biggest problem (at his time) was that diabetics couldn't tell what was happening with their blood sugar so he started doing whatever he could to gain access to a blood sugar monitor (rare and only owned by doctors at the time) and once he got one he started doing what engineers do, testing adjusting and tracking results. He realized that complications from diabetes is entirely caused by blood sugar, and that carbs are the largest thing that affects blood sugar. A low carb high fat/protein diet would have minimal effect on blood sugar levels. He tried to advocate that everyone should follow this diet and also have access to a blood sugar monitor. But the medical industry wouldn't give him any mind, because he's an engineer not a doctor. So this dude went out and became a doctor, and has completely changed the lives of diabetics everywhere thanks to his work.
Anyways, tangent about how awesome this guy is aside. He says if you maintain an A1C of 5.5 you will not suffer the effects of diabetes. The best way to do that, he recommends, is to eat a low carb high fat diet in order to minimize spikes in blood sugar and avoid needing to take excess insulin.
I also follow a low carb diet, which is how I've been able to have good glucose control myself.
Around 2.5 million ocular injections are performed a year in the US and the busiest retina specialists perform as many as 50 per day.[1]
As many as 11 million people in the United States have some form of age-related macular degeneration. This number is expected to double to nearly 22 million by 2050.
Many patients require periodic injections for the rest of their lives
https://assets.bmctoday.net/retinatoday/pdfs/0520rt_AMD_MacC...
Bedside manner of the doctors and technicians is the most important aspect of it. I have a Doc who wonderfully calm and hires a pretty good staff.
One thing the writer doesn't mention is how long all this takes. For me it's usually 2 hours of my time. I go in, get my eye scanned, then dilation drops are applied, then I wait 45 minutes for them to kick in. After that they, bring me back into a room and start applying various things to my eye: antihistamine drops, numbing agent, something to sterilize my eye, and an antibiotic (I think). All the eye prep takes 20 minutes or so. Then the doc steps in to do his thing, and that takes all of 5-10 minutes.
For those curious, you don't see the needle, you end up looking toward the bridge of your nose and the doc comes from the opposite direction. You don't see it inside your eyeball either. You do see the fluid stream in and it dissipates quickly. If there is a bubble in the solution you end up with one or a few black dots floating around your vision, those dissipate in a day or two. You don't feel anything other than a little pressure on your eye. Afterward, you might have some eye pain. This depends on how good of a stick it was and how your allergies are doing. Sometimes you are relatively pain free afterward, but other times it feels like your eye got walloped and your eye will be sore for a few days.
Based on stories I've heard from emotionally immature doctor friends and my own experience being a little more confrontational with my doctors, he most likely didn't know the answers to your questions and was too proud to say, "I don't know."
It seems many forget that, at the end of the day, doctors are people, too, with just as many flaws and emotions as the rest of us. It's unfortunate that this affects quality of care, but it's a fact of life in every industry.
The best thing you can do for yourself in such a situation is to prepare yourself before appointments and remember the humanity of doctors during appointments. If your doctor is being dodgy about answering questions, let them know that it's okay if they don't know and that you won't think anything less of them for it. If it's an urgent matter, suggest looking it up together so that your doctor can provide context for whatever research you manage to find.
A doctor is like a contractor you've hired to inspect and maintain your body. As with any contractor, if you want them to do a good job, you have to work with them, as a team.
> I did this once, I learned a lot.
Surprisingly that was the most comforting thing I could hear. To know that the ENT had enough confidence and presence-of-mind in his procedure to crack a joke told me I was in good hands, even if those hands were holding a six-inch needle down my throat.
I find myself having this reaction all too frequently after traumatic encounters with the healthcare system.
I honestly don't know the answer. Do other patients really not communicate when they have a bad experience? Or do they communicate and the system is simply incapable of listening or reacting?