My Retina Blog: Almost Ten Months Out from My Retina Surgery, A New Vitreous Detachment

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

At almost ten months out from my sight-saving retina surgery in my right eye, my vision in that eye is stable and exactly as I reported it two months ago.  I'm able to read signs well with that eye and combined with the vision in my left eye, I'm doing very well, including being able to drive.

But one evening about three weeks ago, I noticed some major light flashes in my other eye, my healthy left eye.  At first I wasn't sure what I was seeing.  It looked like lightning, and since we had been having some unstable weather recently, I kept looking around in the sky and listening for thunder.  But I soon realized that there wasn't a storm that night.  I noticed that the flashes were around the edges of my vision and that they were more pronounced when I shifted my vision from one side to the other.  I started to realize that the flashes were coming from my eyes, and that it was my left eye specifically.

Within an hour, I noticed a new large, dark floater in my left eye, kind of like a dark spider web or insect leg.  Then I started seeing a bunch of new tiny dots floating in my vision in that eye.  I got very concerned and immediately called the doctor on call at my retina specialist's practice.  The doctor called back and told me that he understood my symptoms and my history, and that he thought that I wasn't in immediate danger, but that I should go in to see one of the retina doctors the next morning.  My symptoms settled down later that evening.  The large, dark floater faded to a much lighter grey.  There were no new floaters, but the shower of small dots remained the same.  Because of my previous experience with my other eye, I knew that the tiny dots were blood cells, and that there had been some bleeding.  I did some internet research, just to double check, and by the end of the evening, I was pretty sure that I had suffered at least a vitreous detachment in my left eye, and that some bleeding had occurred. The question was whether this was a simple vitreous detachment, or whether a retinal tear had occurred, and whether there had been any retinal detachment. I knew that if there was damage to the retina, that I could expect to have some kind of treatment, at least laser repair surgery, possibly a gas bubble, or perhaps something more invasive, like the vitrectomy surgery that I had ten months ago in my other eye.

When I saw the doctor the next morning, I was relieved to find that it was just a posterior vitreous detachment with some bleeding from a blood vessel, but that there was no tear in the retina or any other damage to the retina, and no treatment was necessary.  I have seen my regular retina specialist twice since then, and I have another appointment in a week.  The doctors are watching my retina closely because of my history of retinal detachment in my right eye.

At this point in time, the small floaters that were blood cells have cleared from my vision.  The large, blurred floaters are still there, and probably will be there for a while.  The doctor says that the detachment of the vitreous is essentially a one-time event in each eye, but that the vitreous hasn't completely detached yet.  So they'll be watching my eye closely.  I'm feeling quite lucky, since my right eye suffered a retinal tear when the vitreous detached in that eye.  And that event led to an eventual retinal detachment in that eye.  If my left eye continues to progress normally, I'm hoping that I can expect to keep my essentially normal vision in my left eye.