Experience - Young patient trabeculectomy

[MatthewC]

Hi! I'm 40 and had a trab last week after trauma-induced glaucoma a fortnight ago. I'd be interested to hear from anyone who had a trab at a relatively young age (40 is young, right?!?), just to get a picture of what life is like in the years post-op. My Dr said that patients go back to playing golf and walks post-surgery, which sounds more like older patients to me! (no offence intended to the older generation).

I suppose I'm interested in what (if any) restrictions there are on future life, and what I can expect 20-30 years down the line (if anyone out there has a crystal ball).

Thanks for reading

Matt

[Decorator123]

Hi am like yourself am 44 wait for the same operation. It playing on my mind what the future holds.

[Peg99]

Hi, I'm 66 now but had trabs in both eyes back in 1992 when I was 34. As far as I know the ops haven't changed since then though they were much more common then (amongst the 'oldies') and they entailed a 5 day stay in hospital for each trab - also standard procedure then. Thank goodness for progress on that front!

The trabs themselves worked very well and continued to work at full tilt for about 10-12 years. Since then, I have had drops added to my maintenance programme and as result my IOPs have remained at their original target for all those years.

Having the trabs themselves, did not stop me from doing anything. I took more care not to risk eye infections - grubby tissues/hankies etc, stopped wearing make-up that could drop deposits in the eyes - eg glittery bits, I always wear protective glasses in the wind and cold weather and I am extra careful about what I use around my eyes. Other things I have done over the years is to sleep on a raised bed (helps keep IOPs lower), avoided caffeine. The only advice I can recall being given was not to get into positions where my eyes were lower than my heart.

I realise the make-up bits probably don't apply to you and I don't know what your lifestyle is. The point I am trying to make is for you to be careful not to get dirt/mud foreign objects in your eyes.

32 years on from my trabs I can say that the ops themselves did not materially alter my way of life. I continued to go on foreign holidays, swim (pools and oceans), travel (plane, train and boat), read, eat, garden, drive. The only thing I can say that the trabs seemed to do was make me sensitive to air conditioning. I get very bloodshot and dry eyes in such conditions but I still do and the trabs aren't working now (they naturally seal up over time).

The best I can say is don't worry. Life is highly unlikely to change because of the trab. 32 years and I can say I never regretted having them done and indeed, I would repeat the ops in the future if they were deemed necessary.

Good luck to you Matt

[MatthewC in reply to Peg99]

Hi Peg,Thank you for your response, that's exactly the sort of thing I was hoping to hear about. Luckily the make-up shouldn't be a problem for me! It's good to hear that it's pretty much been life as normal for you since the operations.

Its interesting to hear how the wind and air conditioning affect you more now, I'll keep that in mind.

Its very reassuring to hear that you've been able to holiday, swim etc.

Thanks again for taking the time to reply.

[Sarahmb81]

Interested too as I had post traumatic glaucoma and am 40 and had a shunt inserted a month ago. Keen to know when things return to normal.

[Colin-F]

Hello Matthew

My names Colin i'm 29 and i currently reside in Australia.

a few years back i had random extreme spikes in eye pressure, i think it used to hit the 40's in the left eye. The pantomimist said it it spikes again use Combigan to lower the pressure.

a few weeks later it would happen again at even higher pressure he rushed me to the eye hospital where they diagnosed me with Uveitis Glaucoma. They told me i needed to do surgery as it was very serious and had already burnt most of the nerves in my left eye from the random spikes of eye pressure. They told me i had to do trabeculectomy surgery, they informed me the pressure would never go high again and i wouldn't need to use any eye drops in the long term. i thought it was to good to be true so i got it done 2 week later.

i woke up post opp and told them i couldn't see through my left eye it was extremely blurry.

they told me it would clear up after some weeks and maybe months in bad cases.

4 years later unfortunately my vision never returned my eye stayed blurry.

I'm also on prednefrin forte eye drops once a day in the left eye for the rest of my life as my eye gets inflamed every 24 hours. I'm also on Virgan eye ointment once a day. (Eye is forming cataracts from the prednefrin forte regular usage as well)

Post opp i also got a droopy eye lid after surgery (Ptosis) . They said don't worry we will fix the Ptosis, i had surgery and 7 months later it started to droop again.

I wish i never did the surgery, i would have still had clear vision, no droopy eye lid and no regular medication, but hey that's life and sometimes things don't always go according to plan, we just need to stay positive.