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I was terrified of an eyeball injection

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Re: I was terrified of an eyeball injection

#141

Post by deepspace »

wing-_-nuts wrote: post #37

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.…

Oh god, the puffer. Pure torture.

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.

Re: I was terrified of an eyeball injection

#142

Post by sdenton4 »

metabagel wrote: post #111
sdenton4 wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

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. 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.

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.

Re: I was terrified of an eyeball injection

#144

Post by fredley »

I have had a long-term phobia of needles. This is excacerbated by the fact that I'm usually in some sort of stressful situation at the point at which a needle is being put into me: be it a part of a diagnosis with thoughts racing about outcomes, or worse in an acute emergency.

I recently took positive action to try and dispel this fear with a sort of exposure therapy: I started giving blood. It's a much less stressful environment, that feels much more under control. So far I haven't had any issues at all, which is a surprise to me. It hurts a bit when the needle goes in, but my heart does not race, nor do I get a massive hit of adrenaline. I'm on my third donation, and next time I need to have a needle inserted for something else, I hope I'm a lot less troubled by it.

Re: I was terrified of an eyeball injection

#145

Post by hodgesrm »

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.

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.

Re: I was terrified of an eyeball injection

#146

Post by lisper »

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.…

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.

Re: I was terrified of an eyeball injection

#147

Post by deepspace »

DantesKite wrote: post #101
foobarian wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Excellent thinking. 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.

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.

Re: I was terrified of an eyeball injection

#148

Post by [deleted] »

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…

[deleted]

Re: I was terrified of an eyeball injection

#149

Post by Avshalom »

ses1984 wrote: post #130
notJim wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.…

Sometimes they also give you something for anxiety, like valium.

To be fair the topical anesthetic is cocaine.

Re: I was terrified of an eyeball injection

#150

Post by s1artibartfast »

jamincan wrote: post #133
s1artibartfast wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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.

Missed that, thanks.
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