My Eyes

[WillRiker]

Some of you may already know this, some of you don't and the rest probably couldn't give a flying fuck. I had an appointment with my eye specialist last Thursday, and for once I had some good news. But first I thought I'd fill you in on why my eyes are so damn shitty.

I have a condition called Diabetic Retinopathy. This was first discovered about 5 years ago when I was laid up in bed with a broken pelvis. Putting it simply heres what it does....

The disease’s affect on the retina is the main threat to vision. Most patients develop diabetic changes in the retina after approximately 20 years. The effect of diabetes on the eye is called diabetic retinopathy.

Over time, diabetes affects the circulatory system of the retina. The earliest phase of the disease is known as background diabetic retinopathy. In this phase, the arteries in the retina become weakened and leak, forming small, dot-like hemorrhages. These leaking vessels often lead to swelling or edema in the retina and decreased vision.

The next stage is known as proliferative diabetic retinopathy. In this stage, circulation problems cause areas of the retina to become oxygen-deprived or ischemic. New, fragile, vessels develop as the circulatory system attempts to maintain adequate oxygen levels within the retina. This is called neovascularization. Unfortunately, these delicate vessels hemorrhage easily. Blood may leak into the retina and vitreous, causing spots or floaters, along with decreased vision.

Well my eyes were so bad that I had gotten to this later stage where my eyes were leaking crap all over the retina and instead of being thin and reflective as it should be it was basically spongy and "waterlogged" and my vision wasn't a great deal better than this.....

As it's the retina at the back of the eye, glasses were of no use as my actual eyesight is still as good as it's ever been, it's just that the eyes can't "clear out".

Anyways, how they help this condition is by firing a laser right to the back of the eye and basically burn holes into the retina to drain the fluid off.

The abnormal growth of tiny blood vessels and the associated complication of bleeding is one of the most common problems treated by vitreo-retinal surgeons. Laser surgery called pan retinal photocoagulation (PRP) is usually the treatment of choice for this problem.

With PRP, the surgeon uses laser to destroy oxygen-deprived retinal tissue outside of the patient’s central vision. While this creates blind spots in the peripheral vision, PRP prevents the continued growth of the fragile vessels and seals the leaking ones. The goal of the treatment is to arrest the progression of the disease.

So the first time I went for an appointment back in 2001 I had no idea of any of this and they started telling me all about "laser surgery" and I thought...knocked out, sedated etc, etc. Well NO!! They numb your eyeball whilst you stare straight ahead at this bright fucking light and they fire a laser to burn a hole in your retina. Despite them saying it doesn't hurt much. IT HURTS LIKE A BITCH!!!

That first day I had approx 2000 burns in each eye.

This doesn't "cure" the problem, it just helps to "arrest the progression of the disease." So it could always come back worse. Anyways, i ultimately had 7 lots of laser surgery and even though I knew it was gonna hurt like fuck, I looked at it that I had to give myself the best possible chance. My surgeon told me that without it I would have gone 100% blind 2 years ago. My philosophy is that ANY sight is better than NO SIGHT.

The last surgery was about 2 years ago when he burnt away over half the surface area of the retina in my right eye. Believe me, sitting in a room knowing that you have about 90 minutes of intense pain to come and when it does come you will literally be able to smell your eyeball burning and every now and then hear it "pop", you tend to lose a few pounds in sweat.

So for the last 2 years I've gone back now and then for a check up and really just to make sure that the problem isn't re-occurring and if it is, then we can catch it early.

Thursday this week he told me that my retinas looked great, "scarred" but great and there was zero signs of the past problems. Not only that but I could see 1 more letter with my right eye than 12 months ago and a whole other line of the eye chart with my left eye than 12 months ago. So my eyes are as good as they have been in almost 6 years.

They are still blurry, I still get a headache from hell if I read for too long, and I have almost zero peripheral vision, but at least for now, they're the best they've been in a while.

I should point out however, that prior to this last Thursday all I could see with my right eye were the top 3 letters on the eye chart, and the top three rows with my left. Just thought I'd share that with you all.

[I Promise To Return To MTW Since I Have Been Banned]

[boba]

Glad to hear it Will. The computer screen evidently doesn't bother them? That's good. Congratulations.......

[WillRiker]

Originally Posted by boba

Glad to hear it Will. The computer screen evidently doesn't bother them? That's good. Congratulations.......

The computer screen does, it's just that i have my PC set up so that it suits my eyes.

MTW is one of the better sites for me due to the white text on black background (another reason why I'm on this site so much), some sites are a fucking nightmare to see, but Morty's always been good with changes and checked that I can see shit ok before he changes anything.

But I do get a bad head if I'm looking at the screen for too long....hence why I take so many painkillers.

[Maximal]

Maybe the site is actually helping your eyes????

Maybe because you are on here so much it is curing you!!!!!!!

Thanks for the detailed info Will, my wife is diabetic and has started going in for the yearly eye checkups and I was curious what exactly could happen and now I know!

[WillRiker]

Well the best prevention is good diabetic control. I was really bad in my youth, (skipped injections for days, drank all the time, ate the wrong stuff), and that's why they're so bad now.

The best thing for my eyes now is to try and keep my blood sugars as tight as possible (which drinking doesn't really help - but as I rarely have sex I don't want to deprive me of anything else).

But seriously, since I broke my pelvis in my sleep as a result of a hypo induced fit in August 2001, I've been much better with my overall diabetic control which the Doc reckons can only help my eyes.

[mommysalomi]

Congrats on being in control....I would never want to have diabetes It runs your life from what I understand My step father has it and we could not get him to stop eating candy {He'd hide it from us all over the house} and well he has now lost both of his feet...From what I understand is your feet get real bad and any cuts or bruises heal really slow if they even do...Not sure how long he has had it for...Just keep control on it and great things could happen.......

[BunnyMan]

They found out about 2 months ago that my Neice has juvenile diabetes, which is a pain in the ass trying to explain to a 4 year old why she can't have the same sweets and shit that her 2 year old brother is having; but she's getting taught from a super early age how to take care of herself, and getting into the habbit long before she's to old and stubborn to change much.

[Kase]

Coincidentally, my Great Grandmother died of an insulin shot (she wasn't diabetic, but her roommate was). Her age probably didn't help much, though. I don't remember any details... and I'm not 100% sure that's what really happened

[WillRiker]

Well as an update, I went to the hospital again today for my yearly check up on the eyes to make sure that there is no re-occurrence of the problem and my eyes are exactly the same as 1 year ago.

Basically that means that the retina has settled down after all the laser (lazer) work that was done on them and that basically the eyesight won't ever get any better than it is now, which I can live with. The specialist can't rule out that I won't need further treatment on them in the future but he says that certainly in the next 5, 10, 15 years they should be good unless there is some major unforeseen event that fucks them up.

He's still gonna keep me going back yearly just to make sure that if anything does start to go wrong we can catch it early and treat it straight away.

Funny thing is though that Kelly has a real phobia about eyes, in particular wacky contact lenses and the like...for example she freaks when David Banner changes into the Hulk and his eyes change colour...scares the shit out of her. Well as I get my eyes dilated to keep the pupils huge she freaks out every time I look at her...(which is kinda normal, but more so when I've seen the eye doc ). Tried to get a pic so you get the idea of how big my pupils stay, not brilliant but you get the idea....



And of course, as I was "out and about" I left some MTW pens around and stick some stuckers...or even stuck some stickers.

This one right above the button that you press to open the door to get into the entrance to the eye department..



And this one next to the seats in the waiting area....



I stuck more up but as I wasn't supposed to have my phone switched on in the hospital I didn't get pix of those ones.