I'm writing this blog to try to help fellow retinal disease patients who are undergoing retinal detachment and repair surgery to gain from my own experience some idea of what one patient experienced as his recovery progressed. I am not a medical professional and this blog is not intended to serve as medical advice or as a substitute for appropriate counsel from a doctor or other licensed professional. I am just one patient and my experiences may not be typical or representative of what other patients can expect. I advise you to consult a licensed and trained medical doctor for medical advice.
Twelve weeks out from my retina reattachment surgery, and all is going well. My doctor tells me that the retina in my right eye is well reattached. My vision according to the eye chart is similar in both eyes, between 20/40 and 20/50. That is pretty blurry distance vision, but good enough to drive. Luckily, I can read quite well with my left eye. But my right eye vision still looks like I'm looking through frosted glass or wax paper. That is because of a cloudy membrane behind my lens, called a PCO, a posterior capsule opacification. I'll need a YAG laser procedure to clear a hole in that membrane. I'm hoping that procedure will return my vision in my right eye to what it was before my detachment. My doctor and I decided to wait three more months, which will be six months after my surgery, to have the YAG laser procedure, to allow time for my retina to stabilize. My doctor thinks that six months of healing without a re-detachment will signify a stable point of healing, stable enough to minimize risk to my retina from the disturbance that the laser would cause.
Twelve weeks after surgery, my "eight week C3F8 bubble" disappeared. It had slowly shrunk over the weeks to a smaller and smaller bubble, and I woke up from a nap on a Saturday afternoon, twelve weeks after my retina surgery, and the bubble was gone. There are still some remaining visual effects in the eye that I attribute to residual C3F8 chemical left in the eye. These effects seem to be related to phosphorescence because they are only visible in low light after lights are turned out. I see sparkling dots immediately after the lights go out, which diminish after a minute or two. I also see what appears to be a pattern that looks like checkered fabric that undulates. This effect also goes away a few minutes after the lights are turned off, but it can be distracting when I walk into a movie theater and need to find a seat. I'm hoping that these effects will disappear as well over the next few weeks.
