Hyrops and Pain

[Eisa]

I've had "hyrops" in my left eye now for about 6 weeks. It hurt a lot to begin with, but the pain is now much better... BUT it still hurts continiously - I'd say about as much pain as you get from a mild hangover and some days much worse than others. Today it's bad (hence my post!) AND it's Monday morning too )-:
Anyone got any experiences with this condition and how much longer it is likely to ache?

Bob

[Andrew MacLean]

bob

How long is a piece of string? Sorry to be so flippant, but the truth is that with hydrops it is hard to read over from one person's experience to another.

Your hydrops is still pretty new; it can take many more weeks before you begin to see any improvement.

Is there anything that you take for the pain, either in eyedrops or regular pain relief?

Andrew

[tneedham]

I was told to take sodium chloride drops to help the hydrops to heal, with ibuprofen to help the pain and reduce any swelling.
Good luck with it, it does take time.

[Eisa]

Thank you very much for the response. I was given saline drops for 14 days. They didn't seem to make much difference at all alas. Indeed, after I stopped taking them the pain did seem to ease a little. Don't get me wrong here, I'm not in agony, but there is a constant nagging pain, a bit like when you first wake up having had too much wine the night before, (of course it's in your eye not your in your head!). When the pain gets worse, I've been using soluble anadin which seem to help a lot. So does alcohol in the evenings, it certainly takes the edge off the pain! That's my excuse anyway.

I have always been very reluctant to call down the graft route. However, this is becoming such a big problem for me now that may indeed be the way forward. I have an appointment to discuss just that in January.

Bob

[Andrew MacLean]

Bob

Like you, I kept putting off a graft, and then when I had my first I was left wondering why I had waited so long. My cornea had become deeply scarred (front and back), the posterior scarring being due to Hydrops. Because of this my surgeon gave me a PK graft into my right eye. My own epithelium was in pretty good nick on my left eye so that a DALK graft worked very nicely there.

Andrew

[Eisa]

Update on this: 9 months on - I'm able to wear my RGP's again and (wonderfully) I have most of my vision back in my hydrops eye. The scarring is still visible, but it's faded considerably. I went to see a surgeon to consider a graft (Mr David Anderson) and he suggested that I'm better sticking with lenses unless things get much worse. (I've worn RGPs for maybe 20 years). I do though still get pain from my eye - there seems to be no pattern to it, some days / weeks it's fine, other days it aches. Asprin helps somewhat.

I came across this - I found it useful:
http://keratoconusinfo.wordpress.com/corneal-hydrops/

Bob

[Andrew MacLean]

That is really good news, Elsa. Well done.

Andrew