Loss of Binocular Vision

Background of my loss of Binocular Vision

In January of 2016, I underwent cataract surgery in my left eye. Aged 27 at that time doctors were intrigued as to how I developed the cataract at such a young age in my left eye. Every doctor I met asked me the same question every time if I had an injury due to an accident. Well, specifically I could recount several instances of banging my head while I was a kid. One particular instance that I remember clearly was somewhere in 2001 when I was 12 years old and was playing with my brother in our courtyard, I hit my head on one of the pillars. I had hit my head so hard on that pillar that I still have some sort of a bulge in the bone of my forehead on the left side. It was now clear to me that this accident might have contributed to the development of cataract in my left eye.

The reaction of the 1st optician.

It was during my college days back in 2009 when I was experiencing issues understanding what professors were explaining on the blackboard. I had a hard time grasping things while my friends were able to grasp things quite easily. Not realizing that my vision could be holding me back, in fact, I never knew that I had a vision issue but instead thought that I might not be as good as my peers. I thought they were more intelligent than me.

One day I along with some of my friends visited college hospital and randomly thought of getting our eyes checked. I never wore spectacles before and the kid in me got excited that it would be wonderful if they recommended me a spectacle.

When I put my chin on the machine for getting my eyes inspected, the machine operator bluntly said to me following lines in Hindi:

Aapka tho baain aankh ka parda hi kharaab hai,

The retina of your left eye seems to have gone wrong.

Although I got the prescription glasses I never realized at that time that cataract was already in the process of development in my left eye. Neither did the optician understand that it was a cataract and not retina as he claimed. I continued with those prescription glasses until I broke them in 2014. I then went to another optician to get myself another pair of glasses and also have my eyes checked.

The reaction of 2nd optician

When I went to get myself another pair of glasses after I broke my first one, the optician tried all types of lenses he had in his shop in the attempt to see which one might be able to get my vision proper in the left eye. He was however unsuccessful with any of his lense and hence went on to test my eye with a machine he had in his shop. The guy was stunned to see the state of my eye and said that your eye has some serious problem and you need to consult with the eye specialist as glasses would not be able to help you long enough now. Anyhow he did give me a nice pair of red frame spectacles that I sported for the next two years and also made me think about visiting an eye specialist to have my eye thoroughly checked.

First visit to the eye surgeon

Somewhere in 2015, my father was looking to visit an eye surgeon to have his eyes checked. I decided to join him in order to get mine checked as well. It was during this visit that we first got to know that I had a posterior polar cataract in my left eye and that I would have to undergo a surgical process to get it removed and have an artificial lens implanted in place of my original lense.

The Posterior Polar Cataract Surgery

In the January of 2016 I underwent a posterior polar cataract surgery and prior to that I made a mistake of choosing a cheaper mono focal length lens over a pricier multi-focal length lens despite the surgeon explaining me what each of those ment. At that time I thought I can always change this and go for a pricier lens somewhere in future when I will have money and I can afford a pricier lens. But this was a novice decision of mine which proved to be wrong.

The entire surgical process was a painless procedure except for one instance where a nurse injected anaesthesia directly into the white part of my eye. The needle of the injection caused such an excruciating pain that I felt like jumping out of the bed and cry aloud but I somehow managed to stay on bed & take up all the pain without expressing any emotion. I felt so angry at that point that why did she not let me know that this would hurt so much but then I realized that letting me know of the pain beforehand wouldn’t have helped either.

After a few minutes the anaesthesia started working and the left part of my face became unconscious of any pain or feeling and then I was taken in for surgery. Inside the surgery room, I could hear doctors talking as the right part of my face was still conscious. The surgeon kept talking to me throughout the surgical process and made me as comfortable as he could.

Post surgery changes

After the surgery, I was prescribed some medicines and eye drops for a period of 1 month. During the initial few months, I used to see halos and some sort of rings and concentric circles around the light sources like bulbs, lamps, sun, street lights which kind of troubled me a bit. Also, the vision to me wasn’t as good as I felt with the original lens but then I felt that since my eye has lost the power of autofocus which the original lens had, I would have to deal with this. Few months went by and I started accepting the changes and the new vision I now had.

The following years

In August of 2016, I quit freelancing and went ahead with a job offer at one of the companies based in Delhi NCR to help them with digital marketing. The first two years went by quite nicely without any vision issues. I no longer wore any glasses and was doing fine with my design and development activities. It was during the 3rd year post surgery in the month of May 2019, while I was at a PVR watching Avengers Endgame in 3D that I noticed something unusual. The cinematography looked weird to me through the 3D glasses. It felt as if I was watching the 3D movie without 3D glasses. I would take off the glasses and put them again but things were bad. I struggled the entire 3 hour period of the movie and thought there was something wrong with the movie print.

Loss of Vision in Left Eye

During the 3rd year post surgery, the vision in my left eye kept going blurry in the month of May 2019 and deteriorated day by day to the point where I no longer see any written text on a computer screen with my left eye. Below is the depiction of how a Google page would look to me if I see it from just my left eye:

Following crowded area would look something like blurred image below it:

Visited the Eye Hospital for the checkup

On 8th of June 2019, I decided to visit the Eye Hospital as the vision loss in my left eye started interfering with my work. I was put through several tests and the doctors came up with following diagnosis.

The Diagnosis

The doctor wrote following in the diagnosis:
PCO in the left eye.
PCO stands for Posterior capsule opacification.

Posterior capsule opacification (PCO) is a complication that can occur sometime after cataract surgery. It is fairly common; 10 per cent of people will develop PCO within two years of having cataract surgery. PCO can cause vision to become cloudy again. 

The vision problems caused by PCO can make it seem as though your cataract has returned, but it can be easily treated with a quick, painless, outpatient laser procedure to make the vision clear again. Once you have had the laser treatment, PCO doesn’t normally cause any long-term problems with your sight.

Doctor’s Advise

I have been advised for a review next Saturday ie; 15th of June 2019 for Retina checkup and YAG procedure. Until then i have to deal with the blurry vision in my left eye.

Just hoping to get back my vision in the left eye after the laser procedure on coming Saturday.