Corneal Graft

[John Smith]

Actually Gareth, I was using a scleral lens in my PK eye as soon as the stitches were out. Ken did want to try me with one earlier, but I resisted!

Anyway, I didn't take too well; the lack of oxygen through the lens coupled with the umpteen rejection episodes meant my depleted endothelium couldn't cope, and after a reducing period of time (down to just over an hour) the eye was going foggy and that just wasn't on.

As it happens I now get pretty reasonable vision with glasses in that eye - but only in the right circumstances!

[GarethB]

John,

I always assumed that was the eye you waiting to have the graft on, but then in my defense I had not met you many times before that

[jayuk]

Dipesh

Looks like good progress all round!

I would def try the glasses.....Let Optometrists advice you on Glasses and let Opthamologists advice you on grafts.....lol.....that way you cant lost and you get the prof advice.....you have nothing to lose....

J

[Dipesh]

John, you've just given me food for thought. re the lack of oxygen. I haven't had a rejection episode as of yet (crossed finger and touching wood) but will have to think about how long i wear it.

Gareth, I remeber Ken saying they have fitted sclerals on patients who had a graft just over 6 months ago. This is with the stitches still in tack.

[John Smith]

I ended up wearing sclerals in both eyes. My PK eye didn't cope too well: wearing time max just over an hour.

Pre-DALK though I did up to 5 hours on the other eye; still not good enough, so I gave up on that eye, went for a DALK and have made do with the PK eye's vision and glasses ever since.

[Dipesh]

Thanks guys.....now settled in new flat the hunt is on for a Good Optom near me.

I will of sourse try and give you an update on how the wear time is going.

[Dipesh]

Hi All,

It certainly has been a long time since i have posted anything or even replied to others posts/questions.

Well i thought id give ou an update on how my graft was going since my op in April 05. Well I was at moorfiedls today to see how my sceral wear time was going over my right grafted eye. Needless to say I have been wearing it as, everytime i tried inserting it i would get an air bubble......Having wasted countless tubes of Amidose I gave up.

But after chatting to the lens techi their she showed me a new way to insert them which was so much easier........so I thoughtthis would be it a new dawn of building my wear time. After that I went next door to Mr Garty's clinic to see how the graft was comming along.

To my amazement things since my last post last year were good, no rejections or infections to speak. (so touch wood) He looked at my eye and said the graft looks clean and health so nothing to worry about........Checked my eye pressure and BAM!!!!! Eye pressure of 34....i could believe it and was speechless. I thought to myslef whats happend?

He explained the vien in the back of my were i littel inflamed and i thought well i have just been wearing the lens for and hours and been playing around inserting, taking out, re-inserting. Knowing he eye was used to the lens i thought that must be a contrbuting factor. He Mentioned GLUACOMA and my heart just shank.....

So the upshot is I have to go back in 2 weeeks to see if the pressure settle and if not not ......i'm in for a whole new life.

Is Glaucoma more commom when grafts hv=ave taken place?
I#d be interested to hear other ppl stories as i know nothing about this condition.......I guesss it will be long night reading about it.

[rosemary johnson]

Hi Dipesh
Sorry to hear you've just had a shock over high eye pressure.
I was in A&E about 3 weeks ago (and twice since) - initially because the world was starting to go very misty very quickly.
But the A&E doctor measure th eye pressure and it was 36 and he reckoned the mistiness was due tothe high pressure,and not rejecting.
I'd first thought the initial mistiness was an air bubble under the new scleral lens, and the vaguely misty bits I'd been getting had been signs I'd kept the lens in too long.
But this time, I'd barely had it in for 2 and a glaf hours and the fog was gathering.
One thing that can cause your eye pressure to go up after a graft is the drops you put in to stop the graft rejecting. ne of the A&E people reckoned that was what was causing mine to rise.
But they can't just tell you to stop using the anti-rejection drops because you don't want a rejection!
Another person in A&E reckoned it probably wasn't the anti-rejection drops - because I'd only recently been reducing those anyway. SHe thought it was just one of those thigns - that after a graft, sometimes the pressure just does go up.
Those two are why they measure the pressure at every appointmnet.
There's a lot more about this in the topic called "Rainbows revisited - oh no!!"
They've given me eye drops to reduce the pressure - which had got it back to "normal" lvels by the next day when I was back in A&E by arrangement for a follow up - but it was up to 25 again the next week ("normal is up to 21)
I have an appointmnet next week - we'll see how it is then.
AIUI, glaucoma is what you get if you have too high eye pressure for too long.
Henve the drops, and the montiroing of the eye pressure - to prevent glaucoma building up.
Have you got pressure-reducing drops? - if so which sort? Mine are Travatan - not the "first choice", but they can't give me those, because I have asthma and the 1st choice pressure drops and the asthma inhalers would cancel each other out. (Actually, the Travatan is affecting the asthma - nearly ended up in another A&E with an asthma attack last week went I visited some friends with cats).
HO the pressure is now, I don't know - shame they haven't a way for us to test it ourselves!
I await news next week - but meanwhile am pretty fed up with it all.
And haven't tried the new lens again since.
BTW, are you sure it was air bubbbles under your scleral? - could you actually see them nder the lens in a mirror? I thought bits of mist when I looked down must have been bubbles, but now I'm not so sure - maybe it was the pressure problem making itself evident with the help of gravity - for example, looking at the ground doing th eweeking.
Best wishes with your eye pressure, lens and everything else. Commiserations on the problems.
DO keep us posted, won't you?
Rosemary

[Andrew MacLean]

The lexicon is full of scary words, and few of them are more scary than "Glaucoma".

Of course, having one eye condition does not render us immune to any other, but hearing a word like this is sure to set us off balance. Nonetheless, it is good to stop, draw breath and think about the meaning of what is being said.

1 High IOP is another description of 'Glaucoma'. Somebody else posted that he had been told that, after his graft, he had been told that he had 'steroid induced glaucoma'.

2 High IOP is a possible result of prolonged exposure to steroid drops: that is why we have our IOP taken at every clinic visit.

3 Because we have regular checks of our IOP, they are able to identify any problem and treat it before it comes to threaten our sight.

All the best. Let us know how things are working out with you.

Andrew

[GarethB]

Things do vary between clinics!

My eye pressure is only measured if there is a problem. 2004 was the first time it was measured since all stitches were removed post graft in 1991, the only other times since 2004 are at eye casualty if there was soemthing wrong, a total of 4 times since August 2004.

I've had other eye conditions mentioned to me before and now I just ignore them. OK I might have to go for another visit jsut so they can be sure which I am happy to do as so far (touch wood) nothing abnormal has been found.

Personally I wouldn't worry about anything until you have a confirmed diagnosis.

On a seperate note I have been told by many doctors to quit smoking. I have never smoked, not a passive smoker, I do my best to avoid smok situations. However I did work for many years measuring emissions from factory chimneys but with all the protection we used I would never have classed the areas as smoke filled.

Doctors are human just like the rest of us and they can get it wrong, hence they want to be doubly sure to make sure they haven't got it wrong.

As you mention Dipesh, you had been playing around with putting a lens in and out and that may have caused some agrevation. My work colegue with glaucoma has managed it for many years and he said he could really feel the incresed pressure in his eye and it was uncomfortable. If your eye feels OK, then think positive.