Post Macular Pucker and Vitrectomy Surgery a Year and a Half Later with Dr Liz

Transcript

Hey everyone, Dr. Liz here. This is probably my final video about the macular pucker and vitrectomy surgery that I had in February of 2024. It’s about a year and a half out. We’re in July of 2025. So about a year and a half later and everything is normal now. So I’m going to start there.

I can read again. I am off the pressure drops, high pressure drops. It took me a very long time to get off of them. So, for most people, it’s I don’t know, a couple months or something. They come right off the drops after surgery. For me, it took until April of the following year.

So, I kept having this reaction when I would try to get off of them. My eye pressure would drop and would pop back up. Then, I’d have to go back on them. This back and forth, back and forth. Finally I eventually got off of them. Okay, yay. Because if you don’t, then you get classified as glaucoma, which I did not want to have. But instead that was not my classification because I got off of them. So, yay for me. And my opthalmologist as well helping me do that.

So I would have it again. Okay. Everyone has their own circumstance, but this is probably the most frequent question I get. Like, do you think it’s worth it? Yes, I do. I do think it’s worth it.

When I had the cataracts in 2018, I had never had floaters before. And um after the surgery, I had floaters in both eyes, but the right eye was far worse. It was like a big cloud and it made it very difficult for me to read. And I never had LASIK because I was scared that I would have a complication and would not be able to read. And I’m such a huge reader that I was just I couldn’t do it. But I did have the early cataracts. I really didn’t have a choice. I couldn’t drive anymore. I couldn’t see a a TV about 6 feet. Really, it’s like 4t in front of me anymore. I was having some significant vision problems. I didn’t really have a choice at that point whether to have a lens replacement cataract surgery or not. So I had the cataract surgery and then had the floaters afterwards.

So the victtomy takes away all the floaters. It feels great. I can read again with ease. It’s not so much work. I still have a teeny one um in that eye and and one or two in the left eye because it has not had any kind of additional surgery. But um it is much easier to read which I’m very happy about.

That eye does get irritated more than the left eye. Left eye is like um easy sailing. Okay. Right eye, it definitely gets irritated more. And when I asked the opthalmologist about it, she said, “Well, it’s been through a lot. That eye’s been through a lot.” And it’s like, “Okay, I guess it’s like breaking a bone and then it’ll ache years later. I guess it’s like that.”

But she recommended doing the warm icon presses twice a day and to see if that would help. And absolutely it does. Occasionally I do them three times a day. Sometimes I just do them once a day. I don’t think I’ve missed a day since she’s told me to do them. That’s been like months. So they definitely help.

I do not do the rice sock in the microwave thing. That’s, you know, fiddly, right? You have to get really fiddly with the settings and all that stuff. And no, I just ordered a USB rechargeable one off of Amazon and it works great. It’s on a timer of 15 minutes. You’re not supposed to go past 15 minutes. That’s what you know, my opthalmologist said. You’ve got to research your own. You’ve got to ask your own opthalmologist.

Again, not a medical doctor here. Okay? Dr. Liz is a PhD, clinical psychology, hypnosis specialist, not a medical doctor.

So, I got the mask and um it’s easy to just, you know, turn on, pop on. I do my meditation in the morning with it. At night sometimes I’ll meditate. Sometimes I’ll listen to music or an audio book. And it’s just relaxing. I was very resistant to it at first, like, “Oh my god, I have to do this. How long?” And she’s like, “Basically, the rest of your life.” And I was like, “Oh my god, can’t do it. Can’t do it.” But I can do it. And now it’s part of my routine. And actually, I enjoy it most of the time. I enjoy it.

So again, if you have warm compresses recommended to you, highly suggest researching that and being very clear with your doctor about how long and all that stuff because you can if you do them wrong with too much heat or too long or something, you can actually um cause damage to the corneas and stuff. You don’t want to do that. If you’re doing them, you probably already have some eye problems and you don’t want to cause more problems. So, get very clear about that.

But, um, other than that, everything is good. So, love all your questions. Happy to answer some that I can, some that are not medically related. And remember, I have a hypnosis over at my website, drlizhypnosis.com, if you have an upcoming eye surgery, cataracts, macular pucker, victrectomy, there’s all kinds of eye surgeries really, retinal. But if you have an eye surgery that you have to be, you know, semi awake for and not completely under, then that hypnosis is a really good has very good techniques that you can use during the surgery. It helps faster healing, helps you recover more, helps you feel calmer for the surgery. So, please go take a look at it. All right. I hope you are healthy and safe. Peace. [Music]