im new here, have a question

[mzfp2]

Hi All, thayou for all your responses, they have given me a great insight too my situation.

I have had hydrops since early august last year, so i think that would bge about 5 months, it is still slightly misty but I am hoping it may clear up in the next few months by summer.

My only concern is that my consultant examined my eye (for a few seconds) and immediately suggested a graft a month or so back At the time he didn't have access to the topography reports, but his blunt adbvice was that my other eye is also pretty bad with central scarring so I should sort at least my disfunctional eye out before the other one is no longer manageable.

I am not too worried now about a graft, as I understand I have no real aletrnatives (as I can no longer drive, and other bvasic things are getting harder and harder) I just want to ensure I really need one!

Anyway I will have a good talk to him, raise all my concerns as you guys have advised me, and hopefully I should be more educated after!

Many thanks all

[jayuk]

that sounds like a plan of action!

let us know how it goes!

[GarethB]

At last years confrence, one of the audience i think suggested that surgeons would always push for the graft route to justify their own job, while the optomotrist would hold on to you for as long as possible to keep themselves in work.

You have a definite plan and many of us have been through grafts. no doubt once you have asked your questions and got the answers, the next day you will have three more questions for each answer you got. Between the specialists and the support group will try and give you the best information, both professional and our shared experiences to help you through the process.

Regards

Gareth

[rosemary johnson]

Hi again.
Five months on from a hydrops, it would suggest the residual mistiness is scarring rather than waterlogging.
It may still clear up some more - my hydropses took several months to get back to "normal" in terms of contact lens wear vs. extra sensitivity, so reasonable to assume it was taking that long for the hydrops to settle down fully. ANd your brain may just get more used to coping with the misty patch there and looking through it.
Only you can really tell how "slight" or not the mistiness is, and how much of a nuisance it is to have it there.

As you suggest, opinions vary about hydrops and it being a cue for grafts.
I had my first hydrops 26 years ago (it was in the week I before I went back to university at the end of my first Christmas vacation). A graft was mentioned then as a possibility if it didn't heal up and left scarring - but in fact it healed remarkably well and left almost no scars.
The same thing happened with my second - in the other eye, just before I went back to university at the start of my Finals term, oo-errr! SO I spent most of my finals term with one eye, seeing nothing but white fog out of the other, and spending regular long periods in the eye hospital waiting room. Is it any wonder I didn't get a scintillatingly brilliant First??!!!
Again, it healed reasonably well (though with a bit of scarring, but nothing that wasn't manageable after a few months of rest and getting use dto it.

At Moorfields, no-one seems to think "hydrops = must schedule graft" - even after the 3rd and 4th hydrops, and with my remaining vision.tolerance what it now is.

At other pleaces weve heard of, people get scheduled for grats as soon as a hydrops happens, and sometimes even grafted before the hydrops has healed over and the tissues are still waterlogged, whch does sound odd in the extreme!
Again, it is the postcode lottery.
Ho hum.
it does sound though, that after 5 months, your consultant has let hte hydrops heal over and is looking at the scarring left (that gives the mistiness) and has assessed it is too much fog across your vision to leave like that.
SOme people might prefer to disagree and stick with it (and it may either improve or just get ofrogtten after a few more months).
Plenty of others would no doubt find it too distracting to go on coping with.

Other factors to bear in mind would be:
1. If anything nasty happens to the other eye, you'd have to cope with *only* the misty one until something was done to the other. Having one misty eye of two is one matter; having only a misty eye is another
2. The alternative to a graft would be to live with the remaining mistiness and refit contacts to that eye - but it may well be more sensitive and give lower lens tolerance than otherwise, because of the hydrops (I reckon it took about 9 months after 3rd and 4th hydrops for the extra sensitivity to go away and get back to "normal" and they were little ones). SO fitting and wearing contact lenses may be more hassle than before.

no answers, but plenty of questions in here! I'd always be inclined to ask "Why do you take that line?" when it appears that opinions vary so much!
Rosemary

[Andrew MacLean]

mzfp2

All the best. All we can do in these circumstances if to be as well informed as possible and then make our decision on the basis of the best advice available.

Let us know how things are working out.

Andrew