What To Expect With Adult Strabismus Surgery

Hi, my name is Melissa Daniels and I have Strabismus

I've actually had four surgeries to correct my eyes over my lifetime

Three is a baby and one as an adult. And this video is going to be all about what to expect when you are getting a surgery for Strabismus

Strabis is an eye turn, so it's when your eyes aren't pointing in the same direction

So when Strabismus surgery, they come in, they cut the muscles and they adjust the eyes so that they are more

straight. In this video, I am going to talk to you about three things that you should do to prepare

for your Strobismus surgery, and then I'm going to go through what to expect from the actual surgery

So the first thing you should do to prepare is ask your surgeon tons and tons of questions

Ask what to expect for recovery, because that's going to change based on how many muscles they

operate on. Ask if they're going to do adjustable sutures. Ask if you're going to get better vision from this

ask if they're going to overcorrect. I have a whole video all about what questions to ask

I have an article on my website, strabismosolutions.com. That is all about questions to ask your

surgeon. So ask lots of questions. That'll make you feel so much more comfortable

Understand what their goals are. Make sure it lines up with what you're hoping for. The second thing that you should do is to just be ready for like the physical aspect

So you need to have somebody to drive you there. back. You definitely aren't going to be able to drive. I think everyone knows that

Make sure you have some good ice packs. Ice to me was way better than any like medication

They gave me all these strong drugs and ibuprofen and the best thing was ice packs on my face

The third thing that you should do is make sure that you've taken off enough time from work or, you know, if you're a mom like me

I made sure I had someone to take care of my kids for those first few days. It's going to depend

more muscles they operate on, the longer the recovery is going to be

So my ophthalmologist operated on four eye muscles, so the inside and outside on both eyes

And after about five or six days, I was kind of almost back to normal

I was still definitely like taking a nap and needing to close my eyes, but I could like get

up and take care of things. And I was driving after about two weeks

I would say that if you work with computers and you looking at screens a lot you not going to be able to be working full time for a couple weeks All right Next let talk about what to actually expect with the surgery So this is usually Strobisma surgery is usually just a day surgery

So you're not going to stay overnight at the hospital at all. You're going to go in first thing in the morning

Definitely need to have an empty stomach. I did it at a surgery center because it's way cheaper than a hospital

And it's way easier. So you just go into the waiting room. They take you back

you talk to the ophthalmologist, you talk to the anesthesiologist who's going to be putting you under

and you talk to the nurse, and they asked you basically all the same questions, did you eat anything

do you have any problems with anesthesia, all these different questions, and then they take you back

to the operating room. And I was really worried about getting the IV

I don't know if anyone else freaks out about that part, but for me it was not a big deal

The anesthesiologist just did it, which is amazing. because then you don't feel anything

And they say goodbye to you. You count down from five and only get to three

and then you're completely out. So a lot of people wonder if you're awake for the surgery and you are not

You're definitely out the whole time. My surgery took just over an hour

and that was for four muscles, and that's going to be less for less muscles

Also, I had a lot of scar tissue. That increases the amount of time as well

When you wake up, you're going to, I felt like I was a newborn baby

Here is some footage of me trying to wake up from my anesthesia

And for me, it took a really long time to wake up from the anesthesia

So my surgeon was already gone by the time I woke up

So he talked to my husband and talked to him about how the surgery went. And then we just left

As soon as I was awake, they wheeled me out the front door and sent me on my way

So it was a really quick procedure. I was only at the hospital for a few hours

hours or the surgery center and then we had to drive like three hours home so that was kind of

interesting. I was still a little bit loopy. So my my depth perception and just my vision in general

was kind of messed up. I was definitely like I would open my eyes and I'd be like oh and I'd feel

nauseous and a little bit dizzy. Right after surgery my eyes actually looked pretty good

they looked pretty straight especially compared to how they were before surgery um but as the day progressed

um that i started turning in more and more like the more my eyes were open i just kept turning the eye in and that was really a struggle This video you can see that when I looked close my eyes were pretty straight

But as soon as I moved the phone back and I was looking far away, then my eye started to cross in

They started adding to the recovery of like the pain that I was feeling

to add on the part that it didn't work very well. So it's definitely something that you have to plan for is to

know that it's going to be a struggle. And another thing to think about is if your eyes go like this

and the surgeon corrects them to go like this, it's going to look really weird to you. Even if they make

your eyes perfectly straight, you're going to feel like they are crossed in. Or if your eyes cross

in and they move them out, even if they're pretty straight, it's going to look really weird and you're

going to be freaking out like, do my eyes look crazy? And just know that your brain has been looking

at yourself in the mirror for so long with your eyes a certain way. And making that adjustment

is, it's going to take some time for your brain to adjust to the way that they actually look. So

don't freak out from the beginning. Just like take a deep breath and try to relax. Because I think

if you're trying to force your eyes and you're really tense, it's going to just make it worse

I don't know if that's science, but just it's going to, it's going to take time. Your eyes are going to adjust over the course of the first like six weeks after your surgery

And so don't, don't freak out. It's going to be okay. Okay

You're going to be okay? That definitely was the hardest part. The recovery part, I guess my eyes looked disgusting

They were so red and goopy and gross. And I was cleaning them out

Like every, I would get a clean washcloth every time. clean them out with hot water, you know, the yellow goop is coming out and they hurt to look to the

sides and I just wanted to keep my eyes closed with ice on them. And as long as the ice was on

him, I had almost no pain. But the emotional part was the hard part. I will say that. I could do

the pain again and again, but worrying that I'd made a big mistake that my surgery didn't work

that was really hard for me. I have a whole video all about the entire recovery. I have an article

on my website, strabismissolutions.com slash recovery. I think. If it's not, I'll put the right one down below

But you can read like details from every single day like what symptoms I was having when the redness went away double vision all of that So I just give the very short one version here For the first few days it was really bad I couldn

hardly walk straight. I was very dizzy, very disoriented. My eye turned in really far, and my brain

was just thrown for a loop. I went from 35 diapters out to 25 diapters in. And so my brain was having a really

hard time making sense of how the world looked. I tried to like walk with just my bad eye and I couldn't

walk in a straight line. I was falling all over the place. I just, I, the double vision, I was having

tons of double vision. It wasn't just like I was looking at my finger and there were two fingers

It was like two full rooms. I ended up getting adjustable sutures, which, I mean, that happened during

the original surgery, he put in adjustable sutures, and then I went back in a week later

and he adjusted it. It's actually five days later and made it so my eyes were much more straight afterwards

And so that helped a ton with the dizziness and the nausea and the double vision

But that five days in between was pretty rough. It's still adjusted even after the sutures

My eyes still drifted back out, which was really great. That is pretty much everything you need to know about having Strabismos surgery

it's not a big deal physically. Yes, you're going to need to take time off work, of course

Your eyes are going to be sore. But with some ice and some ibuprofen, you're going to be totally fine

Sleep for a couple days and it's going to be over. Prepare emotionally

It can be really discouraging, but it's going to be okay. It's all going to work out how it's supposed to

If you have any more questions, you can leave them in the comments

You can go to my website. You can even schedule a consult with me and we can talk one on one over Zoom

We can discuss all of this. If you've had a surgery that didn't work out and you're freaking out, sign up and we can

talk about it and I can help you through it because I've been there and I know how hard it is

But it will, it all works out in the end how it's supposed to. So have a fabulous day

Good luck with your Stramismas surgery and your decision on whether or not to get it

It definitely helped me. I combined it with vision therapy because. I wanted 3D and so I did both because I wanted my eyes to work together and that has helped

so much in the recovery and helping my eyes stay straight so definitely recommend that and I'm going to

sign off so have a fabulous day