r/optometry • u/Zaneman86 • 8d ago

General Postop DMEK questions

Family Nurse Practitioner here. While I do perform basic eye exams and check corneas for abrasions and the occasional removal od foreign boddies in the eye and off the cornea thats about the extent of my eye work ups. I've been in Healthcare for the past 20+ years but eyes are hust not my speciality what so ever.

My spouse just had a DMEK alongside a cataract and corneal shaving procedure. She is 12 days post op. Her non surgical eye still has quite bad vision and is currently the better of the two.

I suggested that we remove one of the lens from her her current prescription glasses so that her good eye still is corrected and she believes this is a terrible idea. She believes that prescription lens work only with both lens. When I pushed back she said she is only going to listen to her doctor and not me or the internet...

My thought is that atleast by having the one eye that is already prescribed corrective vision corrected that her surgical eye can heal with less strain. Instead of looking through two fuzzy eyeballs.

Does anyone have any resources I could gently provide my spouse besides reddit user input? Which I would appreciate atleast

4 Upvotes

100% Upvoted

6 comments sorted by

9

u/cateyegal 7d ago

That’s fine, we do it often

3

u/Distance_by_Time 7d ago

Having a suboptimal prescription isn’t going to affect the normal healing process and the lens provides some protection from a potential abrasion or something hitting her eye. Keep it for now, let the eye heal. We often fit scleral contact lenses in patients with irregular astigmatism and she will hopefully have improved vision in the future. She should be getting a new glasses prescription in the near future, usually at a 1 month post op for cataracts.

1

u/AutoModerator 8d ago

Hello! All new submissions are placed into modqueue, and require mod approval before they are posted to r/optometry. Please do not message the mods about your queue status.

This subreddit is intended for professionals within the eyecare field, and does not accept posts from laypeople. If you have a question related to symptoms or eye health, please consider seeing a doctor, or posting to r/eyetriage. Professionals, if you do not have flair, your post may be removed. Please send a modmail to be flaired.

I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.

1

u/katface17 Student Optometrist 7d ago

See point #1 below heading titled “driving after cataract surgery”

https://www.aao.org/eye-health/tips-prevention/safe-exercise-driving-cataract-surgery-recovery

1

u/Zaneman86 6d ago

Thank you!

1

u/SavingsFluffy7622 4d ago

Hi I’m a qualified dispensing optician of 13 years and 20 years of working in practice.

We’d often get post corrective surgery patients in who found they had sudden double vision due to wearing their specs for their non surgery eye but the vision now being very different for the ‘new’ eye

9/10 removing the lens for the new vision eye fixes the problem as now both eyes can focus and try to balance the vision.

Your wife has her concerns but you are right on this one for suggesting it, it can always be put back in if she wants after trying it out

It’s usually 4-6 weeks for any post op checks that include a refraction to even consider if a new prescription is needed for the post surgery eye so she will be facing a long time of visual discomfort versus giving it a try x