Thursday, November 8, 2012

Laser Ablation of my Eye

I went for my third appointment at the ophthalmologist yesterday to see how my central serous retinopathy is progressing . I could have predicted the result, which was that there is not change, but I had to go through all the tests again. They did a laser raster scan of the back surface of my eye. In the first figure you can see the state of my left eye. The depression in the middle is the fovea where most of your vision is centred. 

Normal left eye
 However the right eye looks significantly different as can be seen in the second figure. The fluid has leaked into the subretinal space and detached most of the macula region of my eye from the back of my eye. This results, in my case, in blurred and distorted vision and deteriorated light sensitivity.
Faulty Right eye
This is what the scans looked like in August, and they haven't changed much. The cause can be seen better below in the fluoroscein angiogram pics. The white spot is where fluorescent dye is leaking out of my veins, pushing the fovea away from the back of my eye.

There has been very little change since August, so my doctor recommended I get the laser ablation. I thought there would be prep required and that I'd have to come back another day. I was wrong. The surgery took minutes, Renalda could attest...thinking about it now, I hope you closed your eyes babe!!

First they put more drops in my eye, this time an anesthetic, the previous time was to dilate the pupil. It was a bit uncomfortable, but not painful. You sit with your chin in one of those bucket things and look with your good eye at a predefined spot. Then he put a handheld lens onto the surface of my eye, which I tried to blink out. He then took aim, asked me to sit very still and shot a very bright laser onto the spot in my eye. Hopefully it was successful and I'll be able to see normally again soon!

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hi Mark just reading your post I recently went through the same thing. You want to aggressively attack this, don't wait. I had the new laser diode (yellow laser) and 2 avastin eye injections third one coming soon. The fluid has gone down a lot. You have to treat it or it will come back (as in my case) and cause your central vision to become worse. I am a female also this typically happens in males.

Anonymous said...

Hi mark, just read you post I just went through this and you want to attack this aggressively and not wait. I had laser tx (diode-yellow laser) and two avastin eye injections, 3rd one coming soon and may need 1-2 more after that one. You can't sit and wait because if the symptoms don't get better it will get worse or get better and come back again. Best wishes

Doug said...

Hi - It's now almost 10 years since I was diagnosed with CSR in my left eye. For me laser treatment isn't really an option as the leak is right across the fovea and therefore not worth the risk.

You've got some fascinating pictures there.

I've even blogged about this last weekend.

Regards, DOug.