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After Iridotomy - eye pain and headaches 2 months later

Eye Conditions | Last Active: Nov 17 12:49pm | Replies (89)

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If I were you I would get an appointment with a neurologist. Balance and depth perception issues should be investigated. Even if it happened immediately after Iridotomy, it can still be due to either that or something else.

I admit the doctor scared me somewhat when he said that people end up in the emergency room with a closed angle attack and by then it is too late to save their vision because by that time it is very hard to try and get their eye pressure down.

I was wondering if maybe the placement of your holes had something to do with the severity. Some reviewers say that it is best to hide the holes under the lid where they won't give you any problems. But you have dispelled this. Moorfield's eye hospital (UAE site) says the holes can be closed with a stitch in rare cases where they are debilitating to the patient. So I guess you are not the first person this has happened to.

I would have never known what to research, since, like you, I wasn't told any procedure name I could look up. When the optometrist told me I had narrow angles and needed to have small holes put in them, I almost fell off the chair.... I mean putting holes in my - or anyone's eyes - I had never heard of such a thing. She did not give me the name of the procedure - just "small holes", and told me it was something that people have done all the time, and that it was an in office procedure that takes 5 minutes and will allow the eye fluid to drain properly.

Easy Peasy Right?

I happened to have an appointment with my family doc a couple of days after and mentioned about the recommended small holes. He said "Glaucoma". I answered " no, small holes". He again said "yeah, Glaucoma". I was not registering. I went to the computer and looked up narrow angles, and there it was "narrow angle glaucoma" . I went on to read the medical online description of LPI and its possible side effects that are supposed to be rare and not bothersome when they do occur, with ghosting being one of the visual disturbances mentioned. This is all the knowledge I had when I next went to the ophthalmologist.

I had not read any actual patient reviews yet....

So when I saw the ophthalmologist, he mentioned "small holes" . When I said the name "iridotomy", he looked surprised and uncomfortable and said "that's right".

I feel that they purposely omit information so that the patient cannot do research, because they know it will likely scare you and have you running for the hills. Still, they don't know a person's situation , and they should be forthcoming with all the details, otherwise, they are making a life changing decision for you. Some people may not mind it, but I have never been a fan of the Mommy Doctor.

I would have likely gone ahead with it if it had not been for my GP saying Glaucoma. I had no idea that there was something actually named "marrow angles". I thought she was just describing a part of my eye anatomy, because she also told me I had "little eyes" - At least she didn't say "beaty little eyes".
After the meeting with the ophthalmologist, I was ready to book it, but something told me to go online and try to learn more. This is when I saw the patient reviews and warnings. That stopped me cold. I thought that I had better tread carefully at this point. Your story is very powerful. I suppose if you had it done during some kind of an autoimmune flare, the inflammation would have made the healing longer, but you said 4 years.

I am looking into the alternative - phacoemulsification. But they don't like to do this unless the person is at high risk of an angle closure attack. The thing is, I don't know how high my risk is.....how closed are my angles? .....half the eye..... just a bit.....narrow but not closed...... possibly experiencing high pressure I would not know about because it is not happening during the doctor visit?

I wasn't given any of this information, and I didn't know to ask because I had not read that far yet . So now that I have, I have to wait months to ask the next eye doctor. I don't have eye pain or headaches, but I still worry everyday since I learned that I have a risk. I am trying not to let it get to me too much. I keep hearing those cliches: Ignorance Is Bliss..... What You Don't Know Can't Hurt You..... I hope you find out what is going on with the issues you are having.

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Replies to "If I were you I would get an appointment with a neurologist. Balance and depth perception..."

I can also say from lots of experience that what you DON’T know can also hurt you, too!

High pressure in the eyes is what they say they want to avoid of course. However, like you’ve already said, you do and did not have high pressure or headaches either.

I know doctors do indeed lie. I think I already mentioned that I had one doctor even do a hernia surgery on me and I never even had a hernia!. When you do get your appointment with the other eye doctor, I would advise you not to even mention the narrow angle at all. Let that doctor tell you if you have narrow angle. I told you that just a few months prior a doctor had reported that my eyes were clear and no trace of glaucoma. Then suddenly I get narrow angles? Very odd if you ask me.I would not alert to the other doctor what was said because doctors do stick together. When that doctor did that hernia surgery on me, I could not get any doctor to reverse it in the United States because they will not go against each other. I had to go to Mexico to get stitches inside of me removed because they were cutting me to pieces inside. I could not breathe deep for 18 months! After the stitches were removed, it was instantaneous relief even though the surgery itself caused me pain. I do not trust doctors at all anymore. They have damaged me severely.

For some reason, this LPI procedure has affected me more than anything because it is affected my vision, my balance, and my life because I cannot do anything now that I used to do that has anything to do with my eyes. Like driving for instance. It has made me miserable.

The fact that they told me I would get used to the problems also proves that they lied to me. There are problems with that procedure. The fact that your doctor said EXACTLY the same thing, word for word that was said to me screams “run”. It must be something that they do. Just tell patients lies just to get money in their pockets. They will go about their lives after they’ve ruined yours and they have no cares at all. I will go to my grave saying that this is a barbaric procedure that should never be done to anybody unless they have serious headaches and extremely high pressure and that is the only choice they have. But to do it just in case is insanity.
I do think the balance issues I am having is also neurological because the eyes affect the brain tremendously. That is a known fact. It’s like when spin yourself around and your eyes look weird. Yes that makes you dizzy. So my eyes are making my head dizzy, so it is a neurological problem because of what they did to my eyes. This procedure had a serious domino effect in my life. That doctor did nothing but scare you to death for no reason. He made you worry about something that was not even an issue.