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4 Secrets for a Worry Free and Successful Strabismus Surgery
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Jun 8, 2023
You are getting ready for a strabismus surgery and you have so many questions! I have been there and the fear and anxiety that accompanied the journey were real. In this video I give you my 4 secrets for having a stress and worry-free experience with strabismus surgery. Get the printable and/or interactive digital PDF with everything you need for surgery: https://learn.strabismussolutions.com/strabismus-surgery-guide For articles about the before, during and after of surgery go to: https://strabismussolutions.com/my-personal-timeline-from-strabismus-to-stereopsis/surgery-timeline/ To learn more about coaching, go to: https://learn.strabismussolutions.com/surgery-coaching-session
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Welcome to Stravismus Solutions. Today I'm going to give you my four secrets for having
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completely stress-free and successful stravismus surgery. I know that might not feel like it's
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actually possible if you're going through it right now, but I promise you it is and that is
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why I created this video to empower you to feel like you can go through this process with no
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problem. I've actually created a downloadable PDF that you can use as you go through the process
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It's only $10. You can get it over at learn.strabismissolutions.com. And what it has is
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a list of different things that you're going to need for going through your surgery. There's
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questions to ask your surgeon before the surgery, after the surgery, packing lists, guides on how to
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get your insurance to cover the surgery. And there's even positive affirmations to help you
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with the emotional side. So all of that comes for $10. You can get it in a format where you just download it
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print it off, and use it with pen and paper, but I also have created it as a digital product
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so if you just pull it up on your phone, you can check off the boxes, you can write in there
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so it's an interactive digital format. So it's really cool, I'm really excited about it
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I think it's really gonna make the surgery process a little bit easier for people
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If you don't wanna do that, absolutely, you can make your own list, This is not something you have to get at all
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but that is available over at learn.sturrismissolutions.com and I will put the link in the comments
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Now let's move on to my four secrets for having a successful surgery
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Number one is just take care of the insurance ahead of time, right
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This, the financial burden can be a huge weight on your shoulders
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I know that, you know, can I afford this? Is my insurance gonna actually cover it
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All of those are questions you can get the answers to. So instead of spinning and wondering
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like, I wonder what's going to happen when they send me the bill, but get it all figured out beforehand
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so that you don't have to add on the stress of recovering, of, you know, are my eyes straight
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All of the different stresses that come with strabismus. You don't need to be worrying about that
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and insurance and money. So my advice, get that taken care of way in advance
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Okay, my second secret is know the questions to ask and then write down the answers So many people that call and talk to me about their strabismus and surgery are don even know what happened in the surgery They come to me and I ask
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so what is this? And they go, I don't know, I don't know, they didn't tell me. And so there's a lot of confusion going on about what happened in the surgery or what's going to
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happen in the surgery. And this creates a lot of unrest for you as you're wondering, you know
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what was my eye turn before surgery? What was my eye turn after surgery
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What's the success rate? What is considered a success? There's so many nuances to strabismus
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surgery and going in knowing the answers to these questions and then knowing what to ask afterwards
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it's just going to make you feel so much more comfortable and confident about going through
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the process. Right? If you go in thinking like oh yeah I'm going to have my eyes perfectly aligned
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and then I'm gonna have 3D vision and then find out later like oh that actually wasn't possible
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for my condition or I didn't even know that double vision was a possibility right like
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every single case is different so I can't tell you the answer like to all of these questions
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because it completely depends on your diagnosis but I can help you know what questions to ask so
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that your surgeon can help you understand whatever your specific diagnosis is and that you make sure
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that you, you know, take the driver's seat and ask those questions. You can find lists of all the
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questions asked before surgery and after surgery in the PDF that I was talking about. Also, if you
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don't want to get the PDF, I have that information on my website and you can just kind of maybe get
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some ideas and jot down the questions that you'd like to ask based on your situation. So I do have
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articles about the pre-surgery questions and post-surgery questions. My third secret or tip for
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having a successful and worry-free surgery is to just make a packing list. Okay? Write down
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everything that you think you're going to need on the way to the surgery, during the surgery
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after the surgery. Make a list, gather those items, put them in a bag, and then don't worry
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about it again. You know, you're worried about the surgery. Really, that's ultimately what you
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your brain is like, is this gonna work? Is this gonna be a success
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And so instead of focusing on that real problem, your brain tries to worry about
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all these other little details. So make the list or use the list that I've created
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whatever works for you, and then don worry about it again Just say okay I already have everything I need I don need to keep stressing about what to bring I got this And the last and the most important secret for a worry surgery
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is to manage your expectations and thoughts about the entire process. The emotional part of the recovery from stearoprism surgery
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is much more difficult than the physical, right? your eyes are red sore muscles all of that that's hard right it's painful the emotional part and the
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worry was much much worse for me and so that is the part that I think a lot of people aren't
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prepared for and that's why it becomes such a struggle so let me give you a couple of ideas
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that you can use that will help you kind of keep that emotional part in control. And if you can
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kind of look at this before the surgery, it'll really help you be a little more clear, you know
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have that clarity after surgery. So first focus on the facts. Okay. You can start spinning in like
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what if this, what if this, and what if that, and maybe, you know, you'd like start going into these
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worst case scenarios. So I would challenge you to, if you can write it down, what are the facts
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You can write down the fact of what is your actual eye turn? How many surgeries has your surgeon done
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What are the success rates? You can write down these numbers. These are facts
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You can talk about like, it's been four days since my surgery, right? Instead of like
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it's been so long and my eyes are still red, right? You can start getting dramatic about the details
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but go with the facts. If you can write down the facts of what's happening
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it can kind of help you pull away from like the drama and the emotional part, okay
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That's the first thing. Second, don't decide anything right away. You don't know if your surgery was a success
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three days later or a week later or a month later and I know that that is hard
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It's hard to not know if it was a success and that you're spinning wondering like
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what's gonna happen, what's gonna happen and that's where you wanna go. But it would challenge you to just say
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I don know what the result is and that okay Like it might be the final position and it might not I don know yet And just acknowledging that like yeah not knowing is hard but I don have to decide like this surgery was a fail
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The surgeon is the worst. Making all of those decisions and judgments right after the surgery
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it's going to set you up for failure. Because the way strabismus surgery works is that you're working with a moving target
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and then your brain has to adjust. so many things can change after the surgery okay and then the third is just acknowledge that it's
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difficult if you're going through a hard time if you're really struggling and feeling down feeling
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the anxiety just allow it say of course of course i'm concerned i'm worried about going into surgery
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like i'm getting put under anesthesia and they're cutting into my eyes like only a psychopath
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wouldn't be a little worried about that right it's okay and totally natural to be
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worried and just be like okay this is the part where I worry about my surgery
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and afterwards if you're really worried about how the results are or if you're
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feeling frustrated right you can just acknowledge that and just let it be
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because this is hard this is gonna be a harder thing in your life and this is
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like this is gonna be something in 20 years you're gonna look back and be like that was a challenging time like it's okay for it to be a challenge if you had
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a friend going through this you wouldn't expect him to just be like everything is sunshine and
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rainbows right that I would say is the biggest secret to my success my original surgery surgery
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result was horrible and I was oscillating between like everything will work out as it's supposed to
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and this is the worst thing ever and I just kind of allowed it and if you go to my Instagram you
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can kind of see those day-by-day posts and you can see that I was on a bit of an emotional
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roller coaster but managing those expectations and really being able to just focus on my brain
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and trying to handle it in a healthy way made all the difference. I also was working with a life
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coach which was very beneficial and if you are wanting to do that I'm actually coaching now so
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I can coach you through the entire process. You can sign up for that at learn.strapismissolutions.com
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and I would love to help you through this process. Be sure to check out that downloadable pdf
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at learn.sturphismassolutions.com and good luck with your surgery. You can do this
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It's gonna be amazing. You are gonna figure this out. We'll see you in the next video
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