What to Expect with Strabismus Surgery Suture Adjustments. Yes, It's the WORST!

Sometimes strabismus surgery does not turn out how you hope it's going to turn out

That's exactly what happened to me. I had strabismus surgery about two months ago and at first it did not work

But luckily my ophthalmologist used adjustable sutures and he was able to fix it

So first I'm going to show you a couple pictures so that you can see where I'm coming from

and then I'm going to go through the entire process. So if you want to know exactly what it's like to get your sutures

adjusted including some actual footage that we took while it was happening keep watching but brace

yourself because there are a couple of pretty nasty looking pictures so I'll warn you before I put

those up so first I'm going to show here's a picture of what I looked like before I had any

surgery so my eye was out I had exotopia about 35 degrees

So after the surgery, my eye was actually pretty straight, and my surgeon thought they looked amazing and that I wasn't going to need any sort of adjustments, which I was super excited about

But by the end of the night, my eye had moved all the way in

So here's a picture of right after the surgery. And here is a picture of what I looked like, I think about 24 hours later

So as you can see, my eye turned way in. And I think that was just my brain having my eyes open and my brain deciding I don't like them to be straight. I'm seeing double and so my brain turned my eye in

So for a week, I, you know, dealt with it. It was pretty much the worst

But then I went in and had my sutures adjusted. So that was a good thing, right

So when you go in to get your sutures adjusted, you're not going back to the surgery center

You're actually just going to your regular ophthalmologist doctor's office in most cases

So you go in and it like any normal appointment they check your vision see if you can see read the letters They check you for stereo stereo acuity and all the things

They take measurements. And when they did my measurements, they realized, yeah, your eye is 25 diopters in

And we definitely are going to need to adjust your sutures. So I sat in the chair, lean back, and my doctor put some eye drops in

So I'm going to go ahead and show you what that was like. A second dropped in

It stings a little. It does. I was super nervous for all of this, and so like the nervous and anticipation made everything so much worse

Really the eye drops didn't hurt. It was like not a big deal, a tiny little stink

Nothing to worry about. You know, a lot of people compare this to what it's

like to go to the dentist's office they'll say oh just like going to the dentist they

numb you and you don't feel anything but I didn't I thought it was I thought it was

worse than going to the dentist personally but maybe for some people it's not as big

of a deal but the numbing part is similar though they numb you so you don't feel

anything and then instead of propping your teeth open they prop your eyeball open

with a retractor so I was so terrified about the retractor I guess

I had envisioned like this huge like big old piece of equipment and that it was going to be like

prying my eyeball way open. So I was pleasantly surprised that it was a tiny little thing

I didn't even feel it. I like maybe felt a tiny pull, but it didn't bother me whatsoever

Here's the video of what that was like. Okay, here comes the retractor

This will feel strange. You'll definitely feel some pressure on your own. from this there we go not as bad as I thought good now I gonna have you look toward me and I do reopen that incision just because I need to get to where those sutures are if you feel something sharp tell me I feel a little like it poking me a little bit

You're doing great though. Now look down towards your shoulder a little bit

Yes. That is the right spot. Okay, very nice. So as you could see from that video, he dug right in

He got that retractor in. and because the numbing eye drops only last for about 20 minutes

he wanted to get right down to business. So he just started cutting me open. And at this point, I was pretty scared

I didn't know what to expect. I wasn't really feeling anything except for some pressure

I could feel the tugging, and that was really bothering me. And just making me, I wasn't breathing

If you look at the video, I'm just like holding my breath and super, super tense

I'm going to show you like three seconds of the worst. of it when he was really like deep inside my eyeball so close your eyes and

count 10 starting now so as you could see he was super deep inside my

eyeball which is super gross and at this point I started really not doing very well

I don't know what it was because honestly like I was just sitting there it wasn't

that bad I was like okay it's gonna be over this is worth it but my body started having a reaction to somebody cutting into my eye

and I couldn't stop it I was like trying to take deep breaths and finally I said

all right dr. Peterson I'm gonna pass out he's like are you sure I'm like yeah I can

feel it happening this has happened before and I could feel it kind of bubbling up from my toes and I realized I'm gonna pass out so he laid me all the way down

had me take off my mask stopped cutting and just gave me a few minutes to just recalibrate

regroup, I guess. And so then he started going again after I was like

okay, I'm fine, I'm totally fine, it's all passed, I'm good. And then he started cutting again

and immediately my body just went back to that same mode It felt like I was under sounded like I was going underwater and I was like nope I gonna pass pass out again This just isn going to work And so we are kind of stuck in this limo of like okay now what Like we can keep going I like well can you just let me pass

out and then do it? And he said no, because I need to hold my eyes still. And when you're passed

out, you can move your eyes around. So my mom had the great idea. She put on, got her iPad out

and turned on the office, which is hilarious, like my favorite show ever. And so after

that point as soon as she turned down the office like I still could feel myself like coming in and out

but as soon as something funny happened and I laughed then all the angst went away and I relaxed

I think it was probably helping me breathe and so that's how I got through it is listening to the

office and I'm laying way back and not wearing the mask and it finally ended so here's a clip of

what it was like he after he was done and he was stitching me back up

Josh? Our CFO believes that Josh is going to play an important role in our company's future

Oh really? What role is our king of the stupid universe? Don't do this, Joe

I think we're finished and I need to go. I would... So after we had the office going, it was a lot better

I was able to laugh and that made me relax and I was able to get through the whole thing

And we checked measurements and my eyes were looking a lot better than they were before

better than they were before. So it was a total success and even though I would call that like

45 minutes of torture because I seriously hated it. It was awful. I would never want to do that

again. I would do it again a million times because check out how all my eyes were aligned

after they adjusted the sutures. So as you can see after my sutures were adjusted, my eyes looked so much more

and now they've healed straight. So even though it was the worst torture of all time

it was a million times worth it and I would totally do it again. If you want to know more about

what it's like and have more details about each step of the process, you can go check it out

on my blog at lazy eyesolutions.com slash sutures