Amniotic Membrane Surgery

[robinzb]

sorry about your thing . we all hope things could get better for you.

really appreciate that you share all this with us. there are so many ppl out there who are desperate to know the effect of this surgery coz it is probably the last treatment they haven't tried.

[Silverlady]

Question Joey?

I'm so sorry you aren't doing well with the surgery and I hope things improve for you. I'm wondering about something you wrote. I never heard of steriods being sold out of a doctor's office. I thought these had to be furnished by prescription from a licensed drug supplier i.e. Eckerds, CVS or something like that?

Just wondering?
Billye

[kurt]

I never heard of steriods being sold out of a doctor's office.

It may be that in order to provide a preservative-free steriod drop, the doctor compounds drops himself.

[Lucy]

Free Samples

I get steroids from my ophth's office every so often. If I need them, he always has a sample to give me. The only time I've had to buy them is if I needed an ongoing RX. Please do not take this to mean that I get lots of steroids, Not the case, but I'd bet all eye docs have free samples.

PS. I posted the above paragraph without reading all the way up the thread. Perhaps Drs. Tseng and/or ****** do have their "own" mix.
Lucy

[Joey]

Hello everyone. Sorry to say, no good news to post. I have gotten my lower tear ducts cauterized a couple weeks ago. The thinking is that I will always need at least one plug in each eye, so I might as well do it. So after they heal up, I am getting my uppers partially plugged. This way if things improve, we can go back and stretch the hole open. For now, having all 4 ducts plugged is giving me too much watering.

I am currently on Lotemax steroid drops. Dr. Tseng prescribed these for me after the ones I bought from his office. To answer some questions about purchasing steroid drops from his office, he is a compound pharmacist. Meaning, he has a lab on site. So he can have preservative free steroid drops already made on site to sell to you. Apparently, these steroid drops were supposed to be really strong steroids, so he advised me not to take them for longer then a week and a half.

My next step is to save up money to go see Dr. ******. Until then, I will probably go see Dr. Tseng one or two more time. i have pretty much lost hope in Dr. Tseng though.

Hope you all are doing well, happy 4th of July!

[Joey]

Hello everyone. I have recently gotten my tear ducts cauterized. My bottoms were fully cauterized and my uppers were partially. So I do not have anymore punctal plugs in my eyes. So far, my eyes feel a little bit more comfortable. So we'll see.

[Tarah]

Treatment for mites

Hi all,
Really interested in reading about your visits with Dr. Tseng. I visited him early this year for dry eyelids and eyes. My diagnosis was mites. I really felt I improved while I was on the treatment. Now, I am back home, far from Florida and my eyes are again irritated. I have not been back to see Dr. Tseng as I have no insurance and it is very expensive. I wonder if the mites cleared up as I was not able to go back for a follow-up visit. I did the treatment for two months after returning home. Dr. Tseng felt that would do the trick. Anyone else any experience with mites. How long did it take to erradicate them? I also lack oil in glands.
Tarah

[np1981]

I was on mite treatment also. It definately helped, but I'm not sure it was mites, but rather the daily shampooing of the eyelashes. I keep it up as a maintenance routine.

[atta]

Is this surgery suitable to cure dryness,redness(inflammation)

My eyes were dry since I was a child. And the situation was getting worse in the last 5 years. My eyes get red and dry when I'm under strong light, shopping center, room with strong light (office), or when I use computer. Actually, there are some vessels on the surface of my eye(the inner side towards nose) even when my eyes are "white".
The dryness is ok, but the redness is killing me.
I've tried punctual plugs, the irritated tears help me for a week,somewhat too wet, but no redness any more, but after that, dryness come back. I've been using Restasis for 10 months, I feel that it helps me, but its not a cure yet.
It seems that the redness is inflammation and it comes from the dryness, but the dryness will get worse when theres inflammation.
Should I take this surgery?

[Rebecca Petris]

Is this surgery suitable to cure dryness,redness(inflammation)

This surgery is not a treatment for dry eye. It is for a condition called conjunctivochalasis.

[tiger99]

Hi all,
I am in week 9 of my left eye surgery for the transfer surgery and while the burning has gone away, my eye is still pretty red. I have this ring around my eyeball - a perfect circle - that is white closest to my eyeball and then its red all over the rest of my eye. I have my doctor - Dr. Robert Mack in Chicago, working with Dr. Tseng in Miami consulting via email to determine why it's taking so long to recover. Dr. Tseng recommended a shot of something called Kenalog to help. I go back tomorrow so I guess I will see.

I did have some blurry vision the first week or so, but that went away.

I'm so glad, Destiny that you are seeing results! I'm getting a bit frustrated at not seeing any results sooner, so your story gives me some hope.
I've been on the same steroids/antibiotics as everyone else. I was initially using Pred Forte and Ocuflox and then he switched me to Lotemax for the past 4 weeks and stopped using the Ocuflox. After seeing him last week he switched me to Fluorometholone as he felt I needed a stronger steroid and didn't think the Lotemax was doing anything.

Kim

There are two kinds of AMT. One completely reconstructs the ocular surface with the AMT (and discards your old conjunctiva). The other uses AMT to glue your existing conjunctiva back to your eyes. Sounds like you had the second one, and it was probably the sutures that really caused the result you had. If you had had the fibrin glue instead of the sutures, the outcome might have been better by my best guess.