Anyone heard of or had lense replacement surgery?

Question

Briefly, here is my story. At 5 y/o it was discovered that I was legally blind in my right eye. My nerves in that side were severed when the doctor delivering me used forceps. Not only that but I am slowly but surely going blind in my left eye as well. At puberty, I regained sight in my right eye for a brief time. (Explanation unknown... something to do with the surge of hormones). That didn't last long. I did therapy for years to try to force that eye to work. None of it cured me, but it has prolonged my sight by many years past my original diagnosis. As a child I was told to be prepared to be completely blind by 16 y/o. (I am 29 and still can see well enough to drive, PRAISE GOD!) I have looked into lasik as an option to prolong my sight even more, but was turned down b/c part of my problem is an astigmatism. The lasik therefore would only speed up the blindness process. I was told to look into lense replacement. Any stories? Any experiences with this? Anything help would be so great

okay, so after the answer from the doc, I called my mom and started asking ?'s. She says that the whole nerve severed at birth thing was a theory of my pediatrician's and never proved. The doctors at Shan's Hospital in FL diagnosed me with a lazy eye. I was confused as to the diagnosis. My other problems are that I am near sighted in one eye, far sighted in the other, and have a severe astigmatism. These are the things that I am being told are leading me to blindness. With every visit my eyes are significantly worse. Will the lense replacement help these things in anyway? And will the lasik make the agstigmatism progress faster? Thank you for your answers so far!

Answer 1

It sounds like the forceps delivery, if it damaged your eye, caused some sort of either retinal damage or optic nerve damage. Then again, if you have one eye that's farsighted, and the other that's nearsighted, there may not have been any damage at all, you just have a refractive amblyopia in that eye. That would indicate why they tried patching of the good eye to force the 'bad' eye to see.

Astigmatism might be looked at like this.

If you have a glass ball about the size of a golf ball, and you cut a portion off of it, you'd have a magnifying lens. If you tried to focus the sun to a point and burn a piece of paper, the distance from the lens to the little hot spot would be maybe a few inches. That focal distance is determined by the curve of that lens.

If you took a baseball, glass one, and did the same thing, that focal distance would be larger. It'd be about 8 inches or so (guessing).

So the really curved lens focuses things close, and the not so curved lens focuses things further away.

In astigmatism it'd be like taking a slice of American football, from the side where in the middle. That lens would have a really round curve, and a sort of flat curve 90 degrees away. So there would be two focal points. If you tried to focus the sun, you'd get a sharp line focus in one direction, then moving the lens further away, you'd get another line focus.

In the human eye, if the curve of the cornea is flatter horizontally than it is vertically, that forms a type of astigmatism. We correct that by placing lenses in front of the eye that makes the meridian that's flat...steeper....or the steep one flatter, so both meridians 90 degrees apart are focused at the same distance. Then they move that focal point either back toward the retina, or if it's behind the eye...up towards the retina.

Surgery:
Well, there's a problem here. First of all, lens replacement surgery is just plain easy. It's called cataract surgery. Same thing. NO difference, NONE....except (always one of those except things...) that the lens is not cloudy, it's not a cataract. But the procedure...same. And this is done ALL THE TIME. So it shouldn't be all that hard to find someone to do it.

Except: This is your ONLY eye. What's the risk? Not much. But people DO win the lottery. And the chances for that are like 1 in 54,000,000. The chance of an infection is about 0.05%. So 5 in a thousand get that.

You sort of have to decide whether you want to take that risk. The astigmatism can be dealt with by some of the refractive surgeries after the 'cataract surgery'. They can sometimes use a suture here and there to tighten up on axis or another to reduce astigmatism. Or use photorefractive surgery which causes little scars that tighten up the cornea in one meridian or another to reduce or eliminate the astigmatism.

But it's your only eye.....

So, you should wear glasses all the time (not bathing, or sleeping....). ALL the time. Protect that eye. So even if you get surgery and you have NOT astigmatism, and are focused perfectly at far, or near or wherever you want to be... you should still wear glasses to protect that eye.

If not for you, for the poor doc that has to try and fix this broken eye at 2 in the morning when you fell over the cat and hit your good eye on the coffee table, or the kids toy, or...you don't want him under that kind of pressure. (That's just not nice...)

Answer 2

From your additional comments it seems you have a lazy right eye (amblyopia) and are needing progressively stronger glasses but are not actually going blind in the left eye. Just to reassure you, no one goes blind from needing glasses. Blindness means that you see poorly even with glasses.

LASIK and other refractive surgeries do not prolong sight, prevent blindness or prevent future need for stronger glasses. These surgeries simply are substitutes for glasses.

LASIK is absolutely never done on the good eye of a person who only has one good eye. There are risks to the surgery and you would not want it to end up with surgery causing true blindness -- poor vision that cannot be corrected with glasses.

Similarly, it would be very bad medicine to do clear lens replacement surgery or implantable contact lens surgery on the one good eye. These surgeries have even more risks than LASIK and can result in retinal detachment or cataract and may cause permanent vision loss.

With a lazy eye, you should best wear glasses as they afford protection to your one good eye in the case of accident. If you absolutely cannot abide wearng glasses, consider contacts. Surgery should not be done.

Answer 3

I was born with two partially dislocated lenses. They removed them when I was about 5. From then until now (now being 25) I have used speacail thick contacts and THICK glasses to improve my 20/500 or so vission. I had the lens replacement done in both eyes (my last one done 2 weeks ago), and it has been heaven sent. I know see 20/50 in both eyes (that's not perfect, but for me it's close enough). So, yes I have had it done, and in my case it was been great. I can improve my vison better now by doing PRK (kind of like lasik). But, in your case I'm not sure. If a doctor says it will help you, then I say go for it. If I were you I would have my worse eye done first. That way if you don't like the outcome you will always have your good eye.

Answer 4

soooo confusing.

lasik will not fix any "blindness" condition. it only fixes refractive error like nearsightedness. nearsightedness and "blindness" are not the same. lasik could never stop anyone from "going blind".

optic nerve damage from forceps delivery is certainly possible, but no "hormone surge" could ever fix it or have any effect on it, even temporarily. nor could ""therapy" of any kind at the age of "puberty" fix or have any effect on any previous optic nerve damage. maybe you mean you have/had "refractive amblyopia" and have done some patching and eye exercises for it...? if thats true thats not really "optic nerve damage", and thats certainly not the same as having your optic nerve "SEVERED". amblyopia is just a developmental retinal/brain problem...more benign IMO than stating you have "damage" or "severing" of the optic nerve.

lasik cannot "prolong" anyone's sight or prevent anything. it only removes refractive error. thats it. if you are nearsighted, it can make you NOT nearsighted. it has no effect on nerve damage or amblyopia. its not magic or anything. it uses laser to remove prescription from your cornea.

as for "lens replacement"...does this mean you are highly nearsighted and out of the range for laser?

your story is really too confusing to comment on very much. i think you are confused (or at least not telling us very well) as to why you are "going blind" and who told you what about lasik...

Answer 5

The corrective lens replacement surgery is a newer technology, but a good option for some who do not qualify for LASIK or PRK.

Just be sure to weigh your risk:benefit ratio, and research the phakic IOL surgeons in your area. Being it is a newer technology, it is harder to find surgeons qualified for this procedure.

Hope the link below helps. The phakic IOL is listed for myopia and hyperopia, but isn't given as an option for astigmatism.

Good luck.