Sutures Coming Out

[Andrew MacLean]

Time to recap: having had a PK in my right eye in December 2003, I had a DALK in my left eye in October 2006. There are 16 sutures holding my DALK in place.

Dr Ramaesh has decided to remove all 16 in one go. I am now waiting for a theatre appointment to have this work done, and have already been told that I'll be referred for contact lenses once verything has settled down. The future may not be orange, but it is bright!

Andrew

[Sarah M]

Excellent news Andrew, hope all goes well!

Can I ask how long u had your stitches in after your PK? I was initally told a year when had it done, then in May I was told 18 months, and this week I was told at least 2 years!?! Just curious

[John Smith]

Hi Andrew,

I recently had 11 of my 22 sutures removed from my DALKed eye - and as I was awake and sitting up at the time, (with my head in the slit lamp) it was not a pleasant experience I had to have a break to avoid fainting after the first four

My appointment for the final 11 is on September 14th... only 13 months post-graft; then I can hopefully be tested for specs.

As for my PKed eye, Sarah, my single zig-zag stitch was removed 2.5 years after the graft. I was told that the limit was 3 years, after which the stitch would start to break up, and we wouldn't want bits of stitch floating about inside the eye!

[Andrew MacLean]

The surprising thing for me is that the DALK sutures are coming out much faster than the PK ones. My first eye had sutures taken out in two stages: the fisrt 8 after 18 months and the remaining 8 after very nearly 2 years.

I think I had been expecting the same sort of time frame for the DALK, or even longer. My ten months is slow compared to Piper's five or six week wait for suture removal in the United States!

Andrew

[Asif]

you should speak to your consultant about refractive surgery. if you are left with some nasty astigmatism after removing all sutures you want to have arcuate keratotomy.....incisions are made into the cornea to reduce the astigmatism. you may get by just wearing glasses after if your lucky, though personally i would get the lenses

[Andrew MacLean]

John

They seem to do this differently in different hospitals. In Gartnavel (a Glasgow hospital that now incorporates the former Eye Hospital) the practice is that if they are removing large numbers of sutures the patient is admitted at the tail end of the surgeon's operating day and wheeled fully conscious into the theatre.

I'm nosey enough to find all this very interesting. Music is playing and the chit chat is entertaining. The patient looks up into the theatre microscope and all (s)he has to do is respond appropriately to the surgeon's instructions: "look up" etc. I usually want to giggle at that, because when you are lying on your back, "up" is really the only way you can look, but I think they mean "look in the direction that would be 'up' if you were standing or sitting normally".

[Anne B]

Andrew, hope all goes well when you have your stitches removed.
I had all of mine removed last month so that was only 8 months post graft.
I found the whole thing ok i had mine done sitting up at the slit lamp and i had no warning it was just decided there and then.
i am going back on Tuesday to see how vision has changed and to see if i need refractive surgery.
i think my vision has improved as i sit here typing this with no correction
i also had a great holiday this year being able to watch the kids in the pool/sea without shouting at hubby "where are they" only to find out they are right in front of me so far my graft has been a great sucess and i am still only 9 months down the line.

[Vic]

For my PK I had a combination of individual stitches and also a continuous stitch. As I rmember it most of my stitches came out due to unravelling themselves, necessitating trips to casualty to get them removed, although a few of the individual stitches were removed during outpatient appointments about 6 months after the graft. My continuous stitch was left in for about 18 months until that too decided to come undone, resulting in a late evening trip to casualty where I had it removed under the slit lamp by a rather junior SHO who looked about as scared as me! Having individual stitches removed under slit lamp isn't all that bad I've found, especially as, as John says, you can sit back and take breaks in between. But I wouldn't particularly recommend having a continuous stitch removed in that way, it's somewhat gruelling and not much fun!

Hope the stitch removal goes ok Andrew, that's good news.

[Val G]

I had my continuous stitch removed earlier in the year, at the slit lamp, no problem. It was painful an hour or two later but was fine by the next day.

[Andrew MacLean]

Well, after monitoring my blood pressure over the past six months, it's official: I have hypertension and am on a daily tablet that will help make everything normal again.

My blood pressure has always been recorded as high in the ophthalmology clinic, but that had never alarmed me because I'd expect to have high blood pressure in a place where they put sharp things in my eye! My eyes are held togethr by silk and scar tissue, I need a machine to breathe for me at night and I need to pop a pill every day to stop my blood vessels from exploding.

All I need now is for my prostate to start acting up and I'll have the full set of old man problems.

No word from the hospital yet about my admission for suture removal.

Andrew