Rainbows Revisited - OH NO!!!!!!

[Andrew MacLean]

Rosemary

It is way too soon to decide that you are not going to get good vision in your first eye. It was over 2 years from my right eye graft to my having serviceable sight in that eye. It was, however, well worth the wait!

I admire your courage to get on a horse and sit towering over the ground that waits invitingly to receive your tumbling weight every time you fall off, and wonder why you find a bicycle more intimidating?

All the best

Andrew

[rosemary johnson]

Hi Andrew!
I haven't at all decided that good vision is impossible - i know it isn't.
It looked pretty good when Ken fitted me for the new lens (on 30th April), and was practically 6/5 when it had come and I frist put it in on 16th June.
ALbeit, it made the horizon look fascinatingly clear at the expense of needing to go and get reading glasses....!
The question mark now is over how good the lens tolerance is going to be. I was seeing misty clouds with rainbow edges round glints off light (reflected off parked cars) 2 weeks later when the eye was getting tired and due to have the lens taken out, and was getting worse lately - ie. more cloudy bits and more rainbows after shorter wear and brighter raibows that lasted longer after taking the lens out.
The last person I saw at A&E did sound more hopeful about tying the lens again after a while (the first one had said "Don't wear that lens again"). But any link between regular lens wear and pushing the IOP up....... well, I suppose can't be ruled out as we don't know what caused it (last person in A&E didn't seem to think it was the steroid drops after all).
Probably just wait and see, and hope for the best, but worryingn all the same.

As regards horses and bicycles - I have done a lot more horse riding than cycling in recent years, so am more familiar with the feel.
A bicycle I'd have to balance myself. And get used to balancing one again. And my balance has been all screwed up by the anaesthetic. Or the steroids, or whatever it was.
I know they say you never forget how to ride a bike - ut if you haven't done it for years, you're a bit wobbly when you try again (been there, done that.... but this time round would be trying to get back into the hang of it with brain damage to motion sensor circuits).
Maybe it will be fine after a few yards of wobbliness - but haven't dared to try yet.
The horse can usually balance himself on his own feet. Well, usually, because I do worry about getting my weight so out of balance I bring him down as well as me when we're negotiating uneven ground. And he does stumble quite a bit, which can panic me badly. Especially now with the motion sense bits damaged.
I should point out that I ride a large, sturdy, "leg at each corner" type and we mostly plod about rather sedately. It's when he doesn't that I start to lose my balance and get all panicky.
There have been times I've just stopped and got off, feelignn all dizzy and wanting to sit and cry. (But he'd probably be half-way home via all the tastiest clumps of grass if I did!)
The other piece of brain function that appears to have been (further) permanently damaged since the anaesthetic is ability to recall names - not only of people, but also THINGS (this, and the motion sense thing) got damaged in an accident at work a few years ago, and both seem to have been made worse again). I've been looking into equine massage courses agin (I'm already qualified as a human massage therapist) recently, having met someone who is doing one she recommends. But..... oral exams in equine anatomy and physiology to get qualified will be a non-starter, I fear, with the memory no longer functioning to recall names when it needs them.
Rosemary

[rosemary johnson]

Yes, I do know - and keep tryig to tell myself - that even if there is a problem with lens wear, maybe once the eye has settled down enough not to need news ones every few weeks, I may be able to get specs which will give reasonable vision correction.
ANd to remind myself I was, pre-op, expecting it to be a year to 18 months before the vision had settled enough for it to be practicable to correct it.
Guess I'm just feeling a bit shaken and down after a rather stressful week!
And I'm supposed to be riding in a dressage competition tomorrow! - local riding school's Bank Holiday fun horse show for their clients.
Crystal - a large, brown and white mare with crystal-blue eyes. Who is very adept at ignoring any and every instruction from a rider to stir herself, put her best hoof forward and do any work. And when she finally does consent to get moving and produce anything like an energetic trot, she leans on her bit, and I get quite exhausted trying to hold her together - and if I don't, she gets all unbalanced and stumbles all over the place.
i've only ridden her twice since last year's bank hol fun day, so she has got out of the habit that when I get aboard, I expect her to work to earn her peppermints.
Horses! They all try it on, to see how little work a strange rider will let them get away with!
This all going to be great fun........... (she says, resisting temptation to add "not").
Rosemary

[rosemary johnson]

Update:
no more rainbows, I'm glad to say.
orld not looking particularly misty out of grafted eye.
eye feeling very dry sore and itchy and looks pretty red. All possible side-effects mentioned on patinet info leaflet in pack of eye drops.
drops definitely affecting asthma - also warning of this on info sheet.
Interesting thing: the "pine cones" are getting more elongated again.
that s, the patterns of multiple images, dots and streaks, from distant lit-up objects.
They used to be roughly vertical ovals, just with the top evr so slightly flatter. I said they looked like illuminated pine cones, because that was the nearest I could think of as a description of the pattern.
In recent weeks, the patterns have been much flatter - trianguler, much more squashed than they were.
Since I've been putting the pressure-reducing drops in, they're getting taller again and more like the pine cones of yore.
ANyone else ever experienced anything like this?
One mihgt surmise it was the pressure gradually building up that was squashing the pine cones - in which case it has been creeping up for some time now.
Any connection with the time I gfirt got the new lens must be speculation......
Maybe fortunatel th lens brougt the symptoms out enough to be very obvious and worrying. Without the lens, I'd never have noticed the milky clouds and rainbow edges and gone to A&E.
Fed up about the asthma, though. and the dry itchiness.
Lots of magpies hopping about Duke's field today. Maybe I'm expecting a letter - from a hospital with an early appointment??
Rosemary

[Andrew MacLean]

I think I had a similar experience to your 'pine cones' as the sutures took up the tension of my new cornea; the visual distortions may be caused by the sutures being tugged by the cornea as it heals into your eye.

Of course, the general advice remains good: if in doubt go to let your eye care professionals look at your eye.

All the best

Andrew

[rosemary johnson]

Well!
Guess what i've been doing today.
Eyah, how did you guess - sitting in the waiting room at A&E again!
Needless to say, am VERY!!!!! fed up.
Eye was feeling very dry and itchy last night, and a it pink over the cheekbone under teh bottom eyelid.
Hoped it was just tired, went to bed.
This morning it felt very sore and itchy, and the eye itself looked red, and under the eye, here some people grow big bags, there was a half-moon area all red and swollen.
So I got myself sorted out and trek off to A&E........
last week they hadn't been able to find my records, so they had a nifty little right pink folder of emergency notes.
This week they had the proer buff folder of all my records going back 22 years - but no trace of anything about me being in last week.
Male nurse-or-whatever they are tested my eyesight - bit of a waste of time, no lenses, so couldn't see anything! - and then took me to test the pressure, which was up to 26 in the grafted eye (and down to 10 in the other one) - was 36 and 12 last week, down to 20 and 12 the following day.
Then aat for ages and ages in inner waiting room for medic.
Bloke with only a surname who of course I couldn't see propoerly.
He explained about lack of notes of last week, so I filled inthe details. He did at least say he'd read all about my horrible experiences around the op - apparently not only from the notes onthe day, but he's found and read the Yellow Card report I sent in, and of which I'd supplied a copy for info to the hospital.
By this stage the swelling under the eye is not so bad as it had been in the morning, and the eye not quite so red, but still feels very itchy and achey.
Anyway, he looks at my eyes down his slit lamp, and proclaims "That looks WONDERFUL!"
That is just what I do NOT!!!!!!! want to hear from a medic after I've been sitting in A&E waiting room all afternoon!!!!!!!!!!!!
He re-measures the pressure and it's still 26, and he isn't too bbothered about that.
He says it is not rejecting at all - no signs of rejection anywhere. That's what he means by "wonderful".
He says it as if he expects me to be thrilled..........
He attributes the redness, dryness, itchiness, etc to the new pressure-reducing eye drops.
He says redness and itching are not uncommon side effects of those drops, but they usually wear off after a couple of weeks as your body gets used to them.
Well.......
I said it was a bit sore and itchy and red all week, and I asn't too bothred, having read the leaflet, untill last night/this morning, but I was getting worried that they seem to be making my asthma worse - particularly as I have my hands tied on asthma inhalers as the op has hypersensitised me to the steroids in the brown and red ones and if I have too many of them I start having hallucinations again.
He's resolutely unsympathetic about this, declines to change the drops - he says the "first preference" is a beta blocker, which is a complete no-no as most of the inhalers I'm using now are betas which would be blocked. And the alternative that the guy I saw last week first wanted to give me was the same type as the ones I ended up with and would ahve the same effeects. ANd he thinks any side-effects will wer off after a couple of weeks anyway.
Entreats me to keep going if I can possibly bear it and he's sure it will get better soon and I'll be saying "what red itchiness?" in no time at all.
We shall see.
Apart from not wanting to put a contact lens back in again, I hadn't been worried too much until last night when it was really dry and sore. And this morning iwtht he sore swollen it under the eye.
Very very very fed up with all this.
Feel they think I'm getting hyperchondriac..... but if it is red, sore and extra-sensitive to bright light, that's 3 of the RSVP, innit?? So what am I to do?
Grabbed tea and sandwich from the cafe just before it shut for the weekend, then went round to friend's retirement leaving do. All without any lenses, so finding way there a little, errrm, interesting, then finding way round a Do with loadsa people there when unable to tell who anyone is unless I could recognise their voice. Not sure how many people I walked past not having a clue I should be recognising them! Fortunately, the person whose Do it was is easily to locate by sound...... errrm, anyone here ever encountered Richard Kirker?????!!!!
Found way to drinks table and buffet OK. Not sure whether the doctors would have approved of the glass of pink champagne (!) but I reckon it was a good analgesic. The nice cold beer before it went down a treat too.
Got home, washed grime and sweat of a frustrating day off my face, applied cold compress to still very itchy eye area.
Peered in mirror. White of eye still very very red - can't imagine how he thought it was wonderful like that!!!!
Swelling under eyelid reduced - red patch under eye sort of half way along makes me wonder if, in fact, I got bitten by some (expetive deleted!) INSECT!!!!!! out in Duke's field yesterday evening, just above the cheekbone, and all the soreness was due to a reaction to the insect bite - possibly it hit one of the eye nerves and that's been sending out panic signals since.
I have some very bad reactions to some insect bites - got two bites on the other cheek out in the field a few weeks ago - had the whole of that side of my face swollen and the bites weeping disgustingly, and got eye ache, ear ache and toothache that side - me and dentist think that one may have bit into trigeminal nerve which goes to all three.
HOw come all these Eye Hospital specialists with their bright lights (!!! - ouch!) shining on my face can't tell there's a puncture mark there I don't know, but have put Anthisan on the spot and will see what happens - still pretty itchy at the moment.
At least I didn't miss my pony-and-cart driving lesson, as Danny got stuck in horrendous traffic jams and wouldn't have been there to teach me how to harness up anyway. SOmetime....
Meanwhile am very, very very fed up with all this, and much in need of cake (thick, moist, gooey slab of Chirstmas cake, I think! - where's our CAKE specialist?) and morale-boosting. ANd a large single malt wouldn't be unwelcome!
Rosemary

[Barbara Davis]

Shucks; I'd ordered a virtual hot choccy and treacle tart for you. But virtual orders can be amended easily <grin>.

Hope you get a good night's sleep and feel better tomorrow.

Love and hugs,

[Andrew MacLean]

Have you ever tried artificial tears? I use preservative free hypromelose. I keep it in the fridge, so that when my eyes are dry and itchy I can empty one of the little single dose vials into my eye and aahhhhhhhhhhhhh! It is better than chocolate.


Andrew

[rosemary johnson]

Aww, cheers, barbara - treacle tart sounds very very tempting!
Artificial tears - yes, I once got prescribed some. When we got new air con installed where I was working then and it dried my eyes out in no time. Didn't find it at all useful - it was probably th ewrong sort of artificial tear and steemed to make my eye sticky and no less dried out. Can't remember what it was.
I don't normally suffer with dry eyes - or at least, I didn't till this op!
I'll mention it to my new consultant at my next appointment and see what she says. (Will also ask if its possible to go back to the preservative-free dexamethasone drops - the coldness does feel comforting if the eye is a bit hot and bothered, it's true! - bt mainly cos I find the pipette dropper things easier to use that the little invertible bottles, and it's easier to tell if it has gone in properly (rather than jsut get very wet eyelashes) if it is cold.
Got out to the field today, and Danny said he could see a small red bobbly bit below my right eye - as if there's an insect bite mark which might be the source of the problem. very annoyed if it is....
About the one piece of good news (as in, found cause of problem) today.
Sundry disasters, excitements and upsets - including child rider whose pony set off for home at the double, dumped her on the grass (fortunately!!) roughly where I came off Duke last week and disappeared into the distance heading for main road. SIghted by traffic police inthe cemetary - !! - but fortunately made his way home in one piece. Child not seriously injured though her mum (whose horse I have a part share in) more upset than either daughter. The adult rider who came off also not badly hurt, though the black eye of the one who got whacked across the face by a low tree branch remains to be seen!
Flies out at the field are terrible - even the mini-Shetlands have their fly masks on, and they have such luxuriant forelocks you wonder where the eyes are underneath.
eye hasn't been feeling too bad today, until I put the evening drops in recently and now it is getting dry and itchy again. I should probably get off the computer!
The other eye, OTOH, is complaining about having to do all this extra work again.
Rosemary

[rosemary johnson]

Much less swollen under my grafted eye now, and definitely looks a red dimply bit as per insect bite.
Grrr, grrr, grrr if that's what it was.
Got letter from the hospital today - my new consultant is bringing forward next appointment.
Will see what transpires then - if the A&E guy as right about the reaction to the new drops wearing off, then with following wind should be much better by then.
Rosemary