Description of the eye. The front transparent surface is the cornea. Behind this is a gap, the aqueous humour (I think,) and then the lens, which does the focussing, and the pupil which controls the amount of light allowed in. The rest of the eyeball consists of the vitreous humour, and the back wall of this is a photo-sensitive collection of about a million nerves called the retina.

in short sighted people the eyeball grows too big for focussing to be done correctly by the pupil, so glasses or contact lenses are needed to sort this out. In my case, being extremely short sighted meant that due to the excessive size of the eyeball, the retinal membrane (if that is the right term,) was stretched and very thin.

In middle age, people with normal eyesight usually find that they are growing long-sighted, needing to hold things further away to obtain focus. This is caused by the shrinkage of the retina. When this effect happened to me the retina tore, the symptom b

The first attempts to fix this up were known as cryo treatment. The eyeball was twisted round and a "cold soldering iron" applied to the back of the eye. this caused the retina to go sticky and reconnect. Unfortunately the effect did not last long...
The next technique was to inject a bubble of gas into the eye to push the retina back into place. the bubble gradually dissolved over a week or two, ... But the retina then came away again.

So the last resort was to remove the vitreous hfluid and replace it with silicone oil, which gives the retina no chance of falling off. Unfortunately vision through this is not at all clear, but it's far better than nothing. So the back part of the eye is filled with oil, but it damages the lens, with which it is in contact, causing a cataract, (clouding of the lens) and this had to be removed. Now you ask, as do I, what keeps the oil in the back of the eye - why does it not spill over into the front? I still don't really know, and the fact is that some did get into the front and damaged the cornea, which I had to have transplanted. One result of any of the surgery is that scar tissue forms. In the early days this is what kept pulling the retina off. More recently it has been holding the pupil almost closed, and what is more, oil has again leaked into the front of the eye.

So, before the new cornea gets damaged they are going to hack away this scar tissue, which they claim should stabilise the oil anyway. There is then talk about removing the oil, but I feel that things will not stay in place, so I will resist this unless they can be pretty convincing over the benefits.

The scar tissue removal has now been done, giving very limited vision for although the retina is happy, much of th optic nerve has been shot away by excessive pressure within the eye at some stage.

The retina is flat, and the cornea clear, but I can see very little due to damage to the optic nerve due to adverse pressure

Now for heaven's sake go and read something more cheerful!

Last updated: Wednesday, September 07, 2005