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I was terrified of an eyeball injection

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Re: I was terrified of an eyeball injection

#131

Post by Asooka »

garren wrote: post #63
morelisp wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Things people I know have had in their eyes I didn't know could be in eyes: - 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

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.

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.

Re: I was terrified of an eyeball injection

#132

Post by jherdman »

I'm very sympathetic to the author. I had to take a few breaks reading this article. Eye damage, things coming close to my eyes, or needles near my eyes are pure nightmare fuel as long as I can remember. "Fire in the Sky"'s experiment scene really pushed this over the edge for me as a child. I still get queasy thinking about it.

Re: I was terrified of an eyeball injection

#133

Post by jamincan »

s1artibartfast wrote: post #94
cortesoft wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

>You can't tell me not to fear it. They didn't. They said don't postpone your treatment and suffer irreversible vision loss, due to fear.

>To any future HN reader scared by those intraocular injections: don't fear them.

Re: I was terrified of an eyeball injection

#134

Post by justasidenote2 »

JasonCannon wrote: post #105
justasidenote2 wrote: post #46

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 variabilit…

Do you follow the advice of Dr Richard Bernstein at all? http://www.diabetes-book.com/ 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 acces…

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.

Re: I was terrified of an eyeball injection

#135

Post by rblatz »

burnished wrote: post #107
rblatz wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Re: I was terrified of an eyeball injection

#136

Post by Lev1a »

I had cataract surgery when I was 15/16 and since I was underage I was fully knocked out for the procedure (thankfully) but what I find to be a funny aspect about that whole thing is that wheeling me in a bed (having already taken some kind of oral anesthetic in tablet form) from the patient room to the operating room (down 4 floors, across, then up a few floors) took up essentially the same amount of time as the actual procedure.

After the operations (first one eye, wait a month, then the other eye) I had to wait six months to be fitted for glasses with "progressive lenses" (having used store-bought reading glasses inbetween) and I was done.

Over the ~10 years since then I've had to have my eyes lasered two times because that pesky cataract tried to grow back otherwise I just have a rather glare-sensitive pair of eyes[0] with a fixed focus length (due to the artificial lenses) making me both far- and near sighted[1] at the same time. Also the glasses are expensive, to the tune of 180-200€ per lens ie. ~400€ without the frame.

TL;DR: it sucks but it's better than the alternative, going blind before or by 20 years old and having seen the difference [2] in the month between my initial two cataract surgeries it's well worth it.

[0]: outside on sunny days w/o sun glasses has me almost constantly blinded if I look anywhere near the sun's direction or any sun-reflecting surface (non-matte metal, glass, wet roads, water surfaces from puddles to the sea or any sufficiently light-colored surface, think paper or white walls etc.); ALSO software/websites that don't have a dark color theme genuinely become straining to my eyes within minutes if not seconds, so take note software engineers and web-devs, dark themes are not some hipster fad but a genuine accessibility feature

[1]: near-sighted from childhood astigmatism (extent: fine details and separations between objects further than ~50-100m become blurry), far-sightedness (extent: without glasses I can't read normal documents nearer than my fully extended arm, visually becoming just black fog/smudges on the white background) from the IOLs (intraocular lenses), IIRC the IOLs were made to make me more far-sighted with the idea that I would get more near-sighted with age anyway to some extent cancelling each other out.

[2]: the not-yet-operated eye couldn't even see a large smokestack ~2-3km away, there was just fog starting at around 1km away, the operated eye could see them perfectly fine on the horizon

Re: I was terrified of an eyeball injection

#137

Post by aeternum »

iKnowKungFoo wrote: post #112
joshlemer wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Re: I was terrified of an eyeball injection

#138

Post by xattt »

notJim wrote: post #113
gdebel wrote: post #42

(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. Anest…

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.…

Anything can be dissected (pun intended) to the point of disgust.

Milk? That’s just cow blood that goes through one weird sweat gland. Honey? That’s bee vomit.

Re: I was terrified of an eyeball injection

#139

Post by doliveira »

rblatz wrote: post #135
burnished wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 y…

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.

Re: I was terrified of an eyeball injection

#140

Post by Zababa »

snuxoll wrote: post #119
Zababa wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.
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