I was terrified of an eyeball injection • Hacker News Board

Re: I was terrified of an eyeball injection

#21

Post by globular-toast » Thu, Nov 04, 2021, 3:41 PM UTC

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.

Re: I was terrified of an eyeball injection

#22

Post by draven » Thu, Nov 04, 2021, 3:42 PM UTC

DoingIsLearning wrote: post #16

draven wrote: post #5

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 eye…

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…

As I understand it SMILE implies a smaller cut (3mm) with less nerve damage.

Thanks for the heads-up, I'll make sure I'm OK with the potential side effects if I go forward with it.

Re: I was terrified of an eyeball injection

#23

Post by PaulDavisThe1st » Thu, Nov 04, 2021, 3:42 PM UTC

wheybags wrote: post #14

Is there no way they can do this while you're unconscious?

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.

Re: I was terrified of an eyeball injection

#24

Post by Traubenfuchs » Thu, Nov 04, 2021, 3:44 PM UTC

DoingIsLearning wrote: post #16

draven wrote: post #5

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 eye…

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…

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.

Re: I was terrified of an eyeball injection

#25

Post by kenjackson » Thu, Nov 04, 2021, 3:45 PM UTC

tnjm wrote: post #4

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!)

What happened? I’m intrigued and slightly queasy.

Re: I was terrified of an eyeball injection

#26

Post by zwieback » Thu, Nov 04, 2021, 3:51 PM UTC

iamjdg wrote: post #10

Not to brag, but to brag, this is nothing. I’ve had a gas bubble injected into my eye to repair a detached retina (pneumatic retinopexy). https://www.google.ca/amp/s/www.hopkinsmedicine.org/health/w...

Awesome - here's an instructional video: https://www.aao.org/clinical-video/pneumatic-retinopexy-rhem...

Re: I was terrified of an eyeball injection

#27

Post by MadameBanaan » Thu, Nov 04, 2021, 3:54 PM UTC

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

[1] - https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/17011951/

Re: I was terrified of an eyeball injection

#28

Post by JacobDotVI » Thu, Nov 04, 2021, 3:55 PM UTC

wheybags wrote: post #14

Is there no way they can do this while you're unconscious?

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).

Re: I was terrified of an eyeball injection

#29

Post by at_a_remove » Thu, Nov 04, 2021, 3:56 PM UTC

DoingIsLearning wrote: post #16

draven wrote: post #5

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 eye…

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…

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 ..."

And I guess that was all of the input I needed.

Re: I was terrified of an eyeball injection

#30

Post by buu700 » Thu, Nov 04, 2021, 3:58 PM UTC

wccrawford wrote: post #9

draven wrote: post #5

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 eye…

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…

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?