Thanks very much!
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Wait, are we talking about injections into the eye?!?!? JFC dude I’m sorry! I am super disturbed by eyeball stuff. Like I can watch the most extreme horror gore unfazed but the idea of contact lenses freaks me out (I proudly wear glasses). If they told me the future of all humankind depended on me getting injections into my eye I’d be like “well, I guess we had a good run” and then I’d run.
I’m not making fun of your plight, I’m just saying fuuuuuck
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That’s great that there’s treatment if only to arrest the progression. Fortunately the delivery tube only hurts for a second—I was bothered more by the hours of irritation caused by the Betadine antibiotic eye drops they used. Today I have problems at all.
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That was my dad. Stoic to the end.
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I guess I was just sort of skirting around the issue but yes. Maybe I should have been more up front about it. Imagining something can be worse than reality. I forgot about that.
Thanks for the good wishes, guys!
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For what it’s worth, retina specialists can do amazing things these days. I had my left retina partially detach a few years ago, starting at the top of the eye. It got about halfway down (completely blocking my vision) before they could get me in for surgery, There were two small tears in it, and the surgeon was able to get it put back in place and reoriented so well that there is only one small discontinuity in the middle of my field of vision – I’m so used to it now that I have to really look carefully to be able to see it at all.
One nteresting detail of the treatment was that the surgeon injected a small gas bubble behind my eyeball to help hold the retina in place which it reattached. I got to wear a wristband for several weeks to remind me not to travel by air or go hiking above a certain elevation until it had healed adequately. My students applauded the day I came to class without the wristband. 
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Today I have NO problems at all.
Left out the “no”. 
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This sounds like something my father had, and the treatments maintained his vision for years. My mother marveled at the tiny and precise hands of the ophthalmologist, who my father adored for her calm and straightforward manner. I hope yours is just as good, and that the treatments work well for you.
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Thanks so much! Nice to hear your dad had good luck with the treatment.
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mum had her “visit” yesterday.
follow-up today shows very good results from baseline imaging. not only not progressing, but somewhat regressing.
mum is - and always has been - a visual artist. she says she would cease to exist if she lost her sight. as much as i hate to drive in miami, it’s not about me, it is her eyesight and, ultimately, about her being able to do what she loves in life. i will always strive to get her to the treatments that allow her to continue to create.
i see the same doctors she sees, ophthalmologist and retinologist. we both had lens implants to correct cataracts. while not currently needing the eye injections, my own retinopathy is caused by diabetic capillary overgrowth, causing blind spots. that was remedied by oral meds.
so, old eyes get old, and that really sucks.
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High on my list of things I never thought I’d hear myself saying is “it’s really great to hear she’s regressing!”, but there it is. Very good results, indeed!
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I can tell you from having to help with someone who had this surgery - DO NOT skimp on giving this the time to heal.
My grandma did and it basically cost her the vision in that eye.
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Absolutely true.
My aunt lost the vision in one eye because of a detached retina, and when mine was diagnosed, she was at the forefront of my thoughts. I’m normally very careful to follow my doctors’ advice, but in this case I actually took notes to make sure I hadn’t missed anything.
If my surgeon had said “standing on your head for an hour each day will help you recover”, I wouldl have done it. (Fortunately, he didn’t, and I think that posture is contraindicated for detached retina recovery anyway, but you get my point.)
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Yeah, the increased BP to the head would be… pretty bad… for that condition. But excellent idea taking notes. I wish more of my patients did that!
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Whenever the kid is sick we start a fever and med tracker on the fridge with the magnetized grocery list thing. Take temp, administer med, note temp, med time, and med type. It allows us to switch primary caretaker easily, remember the time of the last dose, and provided some helpful info to the doc on several occasions and especially the times we landed in the ER when she was a wee thing.
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Is silicone oil still be used for a detached retina? I wondered where the silicone eventually ended up; then I read a paper saying some of the oil was found in the optic nerve. 
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Way outside of my sandbox! No clue at all.
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Internet says it’s current
https://eyesurgeryguide.org/silicone-oil-a-game-changer-in-retinal-detachment-surgery/
Apparently they do try to remove the oil once the retina has healed. However, there are some recent case reports of migration of the oil from the eye
Something like this is what I remember reading about.
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