Jenn's eye problems

[micaturtle]

Ok, remember I said in my last entry that my girlfriend Jennifer (soliloquy) had something funky with her eye? Well, while we were in Utah her eye flared up again and got all pink. We went to Wal-mart optical center and the doctor there said she needed to see a better eye doctor and may have to have surgery. The guy said that the optometrist would probably have to do punctual irrigation and redundant caruncle tissue excision. She has this strange "eye flap" (a little dawb of connective tissue) in the corner of one eye that has her tear duct. In addition, her eye constantly waters and once and a while flares up by getting red, itchy, and poofy looking.

When Jenn looked up punctual irrigation on the interwebs, it seemed like it was only usually used on very young children, and that it was very rare in adults. Is this true? I'm confusled.

Jenn will have to go to the regular doctor when she gets insurance sometime next month. Has anyone here ever had eye surgery? Does it hurt? Jenn is worried they are going to stab her in the eye with a needle, and it'd be nice to have some reassurance that they won't do that.

There are a couple of people with eye smarts on my f-list aussiegirl17 & emerald_7 are the two I think of, but any help anyone can offer would be much appreciated. Everyone on my f-list is awesome smart! ;D

Comments

[emerald-7.livejournal.com]

aww poor jen :(

well..for the punctual irrigation, if its what I believe it is, she will actually have a small needle-like thing inserted into the corner of her eye in the tear duct. Its actually a really thin small tube that they use to clear out the tear duct. That will stop the eyes watering.

As for the caruncle tissue excision, I'm not familiar with that one..but if its any kind of eye surgery, she will most definately be awake for it, and they will probably put drops in her eye which will make it numb. I don't know if they use needles to numb the area of the eye. ( I don't think they do )

Either way, I don't think its going to be painful. I've had a few patients sent from my work to have their tear duct cleared, and theres never been any mention of it being painful. It just might freak her out having people and things so close to her eye ;) So you will need to keep her calm!

Hope that helps!

[aussiegirl17.livejournal.com]

I'm pretty much echoing emerald_7...the punctual irrigation may be uncomfortable but not painful. We've done that in our office--mostly on adults actually--and we use numbing drops so that patient typically feels a pressure but no pain.

As for the caruncle tissue excision...again they will probably using numbing drops and possibly use a small needle to numb the surrounding area. In all honestly, I'm not as familiar with this proceedure, but I do know that they won't be putting a needle in Jenn's eye.

::sends reassuring hugs:: ;D