Cornea transplant...

5-90

5-90

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Who can tell me about it? My son managed to bugger up his right eye rather well yesterday (I won't go into how.)

I took him to the ER last night, since eyes are something you don't want to dork around with. I suspected a corneal abrasion.

The ER MD took a look and called in an opthalmologist. OK - corneal cut/laceration?

Opth takes a good look, and it's definitely perforated. Surgery.

Opth is also an opthalmic surgeon. Dave goes under, they debride. Turns out he'd buggered it up better than we all thought, and they couldn't suture the cornea. Shucks and other comments.

So, can anyone tell me what the average wait would be (generally) for a donor cornea, and what would be involved in the op? I'm not used to dealing with trauma of the eyeball, so I'm curious.
 
Damn Jon. Sorry to hear about that. I cant offer any real information on it but I just wanted to wish your son a speedy recovery and hope everything works out well.
 
That's some serious bad news. I wish I could offer some words of wisdom, but I can't.

Good luck with his recovery.
 
This sucks. Really sorry to hear that this happened to your son.

What I do know is that corneal transplants are very common, and it's not like waiting for an organ transplant. I would think that the wait time might be in the 6 month to 1 year range.

Best of luck.
 
Thank you all.

Mainly, I'd like to hear from someone who has been through the process. Academic research I can handle easily, but anecdotal research requires legwork.

As I told him last night - "At least you're not being fitted for a glass eye." He was telling me he was thinking he may need spectacles anyhow, and it looks like it's very nearly a certainty post-transplant.

Kinda funny tho - I was giving him a short lecture on anatomy of the eye in between the MD and the OD, and the OD listened in on the last couple of minutes. Told me he didn't see any need to correct me, expounded on a few points, and then did his exam. I've been hanging around physicians and surgeons entirely too much of late...

To-day is mainly him shaking off the general from last night (no fun. Been through it myself.) I'll be heading over to check on him in a little bit, and I'll probably take on of my spare eyepatches over when I go (I keep a couple around myself - I still run into times where my left eye doesn't track properly, so I just cover it and get on with my day. My optometrist, ocular surgeon, and neurologist all agree that it's a good adaptation, and checked me off on it. My trouble isn't with my eyeball tho - it's neurological from traumatic insult to the brain. Ouch...)
 
UPDATE -

We went to the post-op follow-up with the opth at 1700, and I now know more.

1) He broke it good this time. It's a horizontal cut across the entire cornea! There was some debriding done (small flecks of paint,) and there were no missing bits of the cornea proper, so it was sutured together. I saw it under magnification - looks brutal, once you crank it up to where you can see it.

2) Like anything else in the Universe, odds are now fifty-fifty that he'll need a transplant. Depends on how the cornea heals. Like everything else, the cornea does scar - and he got it right across the middle. (Ouch!) Since he'd be fairly likely to need glasses either way, and was about to need glasses anyhow (mild hyperopia in left eye,) it's kind of up in the air. Even if the cornea heals very well and he doesn't need a transplant, he's still going to be astigmatic in that eye - and if it's not too bad, it can be corrected (I know - I'm both myopic and astigmatic. I correct to 20/15.) We'll know for sure in about six months.

Cheap lesson harshly learned - I already read him off for waiting to go to the ER and for making sure his safety glasses are over his eyes while he's working (wearing them up on top of your head don't count!) His wife is still a little panicky about the whole thing, so I've been wearing myself out calming her down (then going home and dealing with my wife. She's easier, but she's still a mom - so it's some work to deal with that...) Oh - and told him to make sure that next time he adjusts his eyes, don't use a screwdriver. Use an eye socket (*groan* Got a chuckle out of him and the opthalmologist, tho...)

So it's still a bit up in the air, but at least he's not being fitted for a marble. The eye still works, just not well, and we'll know more in about a month or so. The wound has been debrided, and now we're spending the next week making sure there's no post-op infection (he spent most of to-day sleeping off the general. I was over there and I kept him drinking water - both to help flush out his system, but to make him get up about once an hour. Not my first time at the barbecue - although I had to keep reminding his wife of that. "He needs to get up and move around some!" "Why do you think I have him drinking water?")

Gawd, I'm tired.
 
Best of luck to him. Hope it heals up with minimal damage.
 
I came this close >< to a cornea transplant, as a result of a metal silver from a gas pipeline explosion....

The sliver was actually in my eye for 2 weeks before I even realized it. Apparently the heat from the gas pipe ripping apart sterilzed the metal sliver, so no immediate infection occurred after it was imbedded in my eye.

The sliver went about 3/4 of the way through cornea/iris and was eventually removed when it was discovered. I was fine for about week before perforation created by the sliver broke through and the fluid from my eye started draining.

The first reaction by doctors was to conduct a cornea transplant. Fortunately, there was an renowned eye specialist passing through UC Irving Medical Center and suggested a "pressure patch" technique. That was basically taking a big wad of gauze packed over my eye, and then tightly pressed it against the eye with a bunch of wrap. The theory was that by "pressing" the eye in it's socket, that would cause the wound to essentially come together and let the healing process begin. After a week of this, the healing held really well and the hole in my eye was repaired. Today, there's only a small white scar on my iris as a reminder...

I did have really blurry vision out of that eye for a month, and then it eventually became better over time. I essentially recovered about 90% of my clear vision in that eye.....

Hope your son pulls through ok....
 
<shivers> Good gawd, Ivan. That's the stuff nightmares are made of.
 
Glad to hear its somewhat better Jon. Ill keep pulling for him.
 
Ivan said:
I came this close >< to a cornea transplant, as a result of a metal silver from a gas pipeline explosion....

The sliver was actually in my eye for 2 weeks before I even realized it. Apparently the heat from the gas pipe ripping apart sterilzed the metal sliver, so no immediate infection occurred after it was imbedded in my eye.

The sliver went about 3/4 of the way through cornea/iris and was eventually removed when it was discovered. I was fine for about week before perforation created by the sliver broke through and the fluid from my eye started draining.

The first reaction by doctors was to conduct a cornea transplant. Fortunately, there was an renowned eye specialist passing through UC Irving Medical Center and suggested a "pressure patch" technique. That was basically taking a big wad of gauze packed over my eye, and then tightly pressed it against the eye with a bunch of wrap. The theory was that by "pressing" the eye in it's socket, that would cause the wound to essentially come together and let the healing process begin. After a week of this, the healing held really well and the hole in my eye was repaired. Today, there's only a small white scar on my iris as a reminder...

I did have really blurry vision out of that eye for a month, and then it eventually became better over time. I essentially recovered about 90% of my clear vision in that eye.....

Hope your son pulls through ok....
Click to expand...

holy crap. thats some crazy stuff.

im glad you got your vision back, but wow. thats a story.

after the sliver went in you didnt notice pain or vision loss or anything?
 
besthaticouldo said:
holy crap. thats some crazy stuff.

im glad you got your vision back, but wow. thats a story.

after the sliver went in you didnt notice pain or vision loss or anything?
Click to expand...

There was no pain, nor vision loss initially. What brought it to a peak was that over the 2 week period after the gas line explosion, I slowly became hyper sensitive to sun light. I found myself squinting more over time, and eventually went to the ER to find out what was happening.

They took a look in my eye, and I can remember the doctor saying "Well, heck...you've got a metal sliver stuck in your iris/cornea. Did you just get that?"

He was shocked to hear that it had been in my eye for two weeks. The scariest part of the removal procedure was when he said "Don't blink, and hold very veeerry still"; as he came at my eye with a pair of sharp pointy tweezers.

:shocked: CRAP! :shocked:

I miraculously held very still and didn't even blink, while he plucked the sliver out of my eye. Intial obeservation was that the sliver did not penetrate all the way through, and there was no inherent damage. But two weeks later it did break through, and that was went I started noticing my hyper sensitivity and gradual loss of eyesight from my right eye....
 
wow dude...honestly im stunned. thats a crazy story!

you are one lucky SOB thats for sure. just intense dude.

im surprised you didn't notice blurryness or anything. lol
 
Jon, I hope your son has a full recovery from the trauma to his eye.

I hope this thread is a wake up call to everyone that reads it. Use your safety glasses.
 
5-90 said:
Who can tell me about it? My son managed to bugger up his right eye rather well yesterday (I won't go into how.)

I took him to the ER last night, since eyes are something you don't want to dork around with. I suspected a corneal abrasion.

The ER MD took a look and called in an ophthalmologist. OK - corneal cut/laceration?

Opth takes a good look, and it's definitely perforated. Surgery.

Opth is also an opthalmic surgeon. Dave goes under, they debride. Turns out he'd buggered it up better than we all thought, and they couldn't suture the cornea. Shucks and other comments.

So, can anyone tell me what the average wait would be (generally) for a donor cornea, and what would be involved in the op? I'm not used to dealing with trauma of the eyeball, so I'm curious.
Click to expand...

I can't be of much help, but maybe I can brace you.

My son when he as about 2 stuck an exacto knife into his eye. Nice small perfect cut. They sutured it up but warned us he would need a cornea transplant later. Unfortunately something in his, and his mother's genetic makeup caused bad scaring. Because of this scaring the scar tissue keep pulling the retina off the back of the eye. 5 surgeries later they remove the inner portion of the eye, so they could save what was left for a prosthetic.

There was no guarantee, but from what the doctor told us the eye would have been fine if it wasn't for the unusual and heavy scaring.
 
Yeah. Fortunately, he's demonstrated the fact that he heals well before (had his left ear notched rather badly by a hocky puck some years ago, and had to get that sewn up... There's a small notch in the superior arch of the earlobe, but you really have to look for it. Remnants of what was a half-inch gash!)

Again, thanks to everyone for well-wishes - and thanks for any more I should happen to get (just in case I forget.) This "rock" business is tiring - I just got up from about a fourteen-hour crash myself. Time to eat...

Ivan - sounds like you're very lucky. As I told Dave, I've hammered into Chris ("numbah two son" - he's a carpenter) and I drill into every kid I work with and teach anything - "Don't **** around with your eyes. Wear glasses if you want to see. If you even think something's happened, get it checked out immediately! You can go to an optometrist, or go to the ER, but get it checked immediately, even if it puts you behind schedule.")

The thing that worries me is that it wasn't a "perfect cut" - anyone who has handled a flat screwdriver for more than a couple of minutes knows that they aren't sharp, and will tend to tear their way through things instead of cut them. That's why I was so happy to note that there wasn't anything missing from the cornea - so it was a simple debride and suture job. (Amazing. Those sutures looked to be about .0015" thick!)

Anyhow, the news from yesterday was definitely an improvement over the day before, so we're "guardedly hopeful." Things could be a good deal worse - as I said before, he could be getting fitted for a marble right about now...
 
i learned my lesson the hard way too. i was doing spot welds with the aim the gun shut the eyes and pull the trigger on some sliders i was making...didnt shut my eyes in time and got a bit of flash burn, temporary blindness and now i hafta wear sunglasses if the sun is even thinking about coming out. i already wear glasses and my vision didnt get any worse thankfully

Jon i hope your son comes out ok and im sure he will wear his safety goggles all the time now...i know i put my mask on if i have any fort of welding torch in my hand
 
Thinking of you & yours Jon...
 
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