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light sensitivity

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This week was an interesting week. The redness and swelling in my eye is going down and it is starting to look normal again. My vision is still blurry, and when I look at a bright light source I see multiple instances of the image slightly off center from one another. I probably notice 15 or 20 if those images. I’ve been told that this will go away over time as the eye heals and as stitches are removed.

Even with the double-double-double vision, I’ve noticed many positive improvements in my overall vision. While at work today, I was sitting with a colleague at her computer. Before the surgery, I was unable to read screen text from more than standard reading distance. I would always have to lean in closely toward the monitor to see something over someone’s shoulder. Today I was sitting behind her about about 5-6 feet away and was able to read text in an Excel spreadsheet. I also noticed that I’m able to read larger text with my “bad” eye from a distance, and I am able to read close-up text (3-4 inches away), which is something that I can’t even do with my “good” eye. Night driving is still bad, but a little better.

I still have no pain in my eye. I just go through moments of dryness when I need to use artificial tears. I’ve also noticed that I have light sensitivity for a short time after taking my drops. I am very glad that I had this procedure done in the winter, when the days are mostly overcast. We’ve had a couple of sunny mornings, and taking my drops before I left for work made the commute extremely uncomfortable. Today I took my drops after I arrived and I had no problems with light sensitivity. Learning the order of things has been interesting.

I started noticing some swelling below my lower eyelid. There seems to be a lot of swelling and fluid on my eye… I call it the “gooey eye”. My eye doesn’t look round at the bottom; it looks almost like a partially deflated water balloon. I doctor suggested that I bump up my steroid drops to 6 times a day. I don’t have any pain, my eye just looks bad.

Today was my one week follow-up appointment. The doctor said that everything is going as expected. My vision is still blurry, and will be for a while. My eyes are still red, but the eyelid swelling is going down. I am also doing better with light sensitivity, so I don’t feel the need to wear the eye shield anymore. I’m starting to feel closer to normal.

I had my post-operative appointment the morning after my surgery. When my bandage was removed, my eye was gooey from the ointment and tears. I could tell immediately that my vision had improved. While it was still very blurry, my vision wasn’t distorted as it had been… plus I was actually able to read two lines on the eye chart! I was also amazed that I could see a little bit of depth in objects. I was holding a tissue, and it didn’t look flat. Wow! The eye still felt good with very little pain. I was told to continue taking my eye drops six times a day, and I was given a third drug to take once a day to control my eye pressure. My eyelid was swollen and my eyes were very red, but they felt OK.

After the appointment, I went home. It was overcast at first, but when the sun came out I could tell that my eyes were very light-sensitive. Even with my eye closed the sun caused my eye to hurt. I went home and my eyes were very irritated. The swollen eye would press against my cornea every time I blinked, so I wasn’t feeling very good. I didn’t feel very good the rest of the day, so I spent most of the time sleeping or lying with my eyes closed. I noticed some cloudiness around my eye near the stitches, but the doctor said that this, allowing with the irritation and swelling, was normal.