Dry eye and elective surgery
Watch/Listen
What happens when an elective surgery goes wrong, and how do we cope with unexpected outcomes? Today’s episode explores the dry eye aftermath of laser vision correction and elective eyelid surgeries, as well as medically necessary surgeries for comparison.
Panelists
NICK joined us from Wisconsin. Nick had LASIK 3.5 years ago and has suffered severe eye pain since quite soon after surgery, as well as vision issues. Interestingly, Nick brings to the table an accumulation of wisdom about self-advocacy and expectations acquired while journeying through an unrelated but serious health condition that began in childhood.
CINDY joined us from Pennsylvania with 50 years of dry eye history and a long and challenging history of eye surgeries due to a host of conditions. Cindy recently had to begin undergoing eyelid surgeries to help protect her eyes better. She has a wealth of experience and wisdom to share from her eye journeys.
TRACY joined us from Rhode Island and she too has a complex eye history. She has undergone numerous eyelid and eye surgeries (ranging from blepharoplasty to cataract to retinal detachment repairs) with some going quite smoothly and others more problematic.
ROB joined us from Queens, NY. Rob is a Dry Eye Happy Hour veteran who had LASIK in the 1990s resulting in both vision issues and (later, after ‘enhancement’ surgery) dry eye and MGD. He brings to the table extensive understanding of the complexities of the LASIK dry eye experience, which he and Rebecca have enjoyed discussing together for many years.
Top tips
Some parting words of advice from each panelist at the end of the session:
Tracy
Don’t isolate. Reach out, whether it’s to support groups, or a counselor.
Cindy:
One day at a time. One minute at a time, even!
Visualizations!
Nick
Know that it is not your fault!
Celebrate small successes!
Accept that you have to be your own advocate.
When reading forums, groups, etc, remember that just because a treatment didn’t work for someone else, doesn’t mean it won’t work for you!
Rob
Moisture chamber glasses! They are the face masks of dry eye disease!
Editor’s note: This was an extremely interesting as well as quotable session! We will update this page with more ‘snippets’ from this very engaging session soon.