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thehoneybadger
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Strabismus surgery
thehoneybadger
member
I scheduled A's strabismus surgery for the beginning of November. I was just hoping to hear from those that have been there, done that. According to the exam yesterday she has pulling inward and twisting at the back of the her eyes. There is no evidence that she will need glasses after this is over. I'm worried about her going under and the recovery from the surgery.
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Re: Strabismus surgery
DD had the surgery back in July and has been doing great. The only time she needed a pain reliever was the evening of the surgery and even then one dose of advil was all she needed. Her eyes look great and her coordination has improved greatly. Our Ophthomologist doesn't consider full results until 3 months post surgery, but at her 6 week post surgery check he was thrilled with the progress. No patching as of now. We'll see what he says in another couple of weeks.
GL
2. One in each eye. He could have done 4 but he took a more conservative route. He loosened and repositioned the internal muscles of each eye and let the eyes "float" and settle into a centered position.
Her left eye will still cross occasionally but she can actually correct it now.
DS2 (turned 3 yesterday) had strabismus surgery on July 18. Two muscles in each eye were worked on. DS2's eyes were intermittently crossing inward (not at the same time) and slightly upward (I barely noticed the upward part). He did great with the surgery, not so great with coming out of the anesthesia, and pretty good with the recovery. I don't recall actually giving him any pain meds and while I was prepared for him to constantly rub his eyes he really didn't (I was surprised). The pediatric ophthalmologist stated though that if he rubbed too hard he'd learn pretty fast not to do it.
Results? The eye that crossed the most/was most obvious (left eye) looks really really good. The right eye actually looks like it turns outward a little bit, but not all the time. However, the right eye also had a stitch that took a full 8wk to actually dissolve (all other stitches dissolved prior to that...maybe 4-6wk?) so I'm not sure if this floating outward thing is just his eye getting used to no stitch being there. I don't see it turning outward as often as it was. As for depth perception I do think it has helped with that. The pediatric ophtho also made sure to tell me that while he can fix the eyes, he cannot fix how the brain uses the eyes. While I think his depth perception has greatly improved, I do believe part of the reason the right out floats outward is because he still focuses (at least sometimes) through one eye at a time vs together. We just had our 2mos post-op follow up and the ophtho will be keeping an eye on the outward turning. At his next appointment (in January), DS2 will get a full eye exam to include dilation. I can tell you that DS2 wore glasses before the surgery and still wears glasses and will probably always have to.
Be forewarned, immediately after the surgery you may see him "cry blood". Cry is kind of a strong word. DS2 did shed a couple of bloody tears. It was kind of gross to see, not going to lie, but I never saw it happen outside within the first few hours after the surgery. Also, the whites of the eyes are going to be red. Very red. It eventually goes away. I took pictures at various stages of recovery.