Double Vision / Eye Muscle Surgery
 

Hi folks! My biggest problem is double vision, which prisms don't seem to correct. I have ptosis, in both eyes, which varies in degree, with one eye worse than the other. Anyway, I have second appt with the Neuro in a couple weeks. At my first appt with the neuro 8 months ago, he did not think I had MG. Here's my question. Both the eye lid guy, and the eye muscle guy rely on the neuro guy to say whether or not I have MG. If the neuro guy thinks I don't have MG, both of the other guys, surgeons, would encourage me to have surgery on eye lids and eye muscles. I'm wondering if others have had similar situations, and if so, what your results were. Thank-you,

Rod

My ophthamologist referred me to an eyelid surgeon after my first neuro said I didn't have MG. The eyelid guy refused to do the surgery because he insisted that I had MG and encouraged me to find a second neurologist. He said that if you do surgery for droopy eyelids with MG, then it can be hard to close your eyes, making it worse. My second neuro said that I do have MG. The mestinon does a lot of good, so I guess they are right.

With such variable weakness, I would be afraid of any type of surgery on my eyes. Plus surgery is a stresser that exaccerbates MG. Abdominal surgery was the trigger that sent me into my current exaccerabation of MG 3 years ago.

kathie

Hello Rod :) Welcome. Given the information you have provided, at this time, I say with confidence that the opinion of Southblues' "eye guy" is the medical field's consensus.

Thank-you. I am not in any rush to have surgery, and didn't know the ramifications of surgery on top of MG. Now I know.

southblues:

Eye surgeon said the exact same thing to me.

Thank goodness we had good docs who were watchin' out for us! ;)

Thanks to all of you. It's been helpful just to be able to have this interaction with others dealing with similar issues. I see the neuro next Tuesday, and will "report" back to the group. Rod

I'm just throwing this out there. 2 months post shoulder surgery I am now having vision problems and I've had MG for almost 5 years with mainly bulbar issues only. The weakness in both eyes is subtle, but enough to really cause balance and vision stability issues. I think it was the surgery that caused my current problems. Other members seem to know more than I do, but try to avoid unnecessary surgey if possible.

I have pretty much decided not to have eyelid surgery, at least for now. I suppose I could see better, but it's the double vision that causes me the most aggravation. My situation is further complicated by having an epi-retinal membrane in the eye with the eyelid that has the most fluctuation. My second image is fainter and blurred. In a way, that sort of helps, because I always assume that the clearer image is the "right" image. The eyelid guy would want to see if I was going to have either eye muscle work done, or the epi-menbrane peel done before he did eyelid work anyway. This thing just goes on and on. Neuro guy in 6 days, hoping for answers.

Hi folks. Well my Neuologist thinks I should have the epi-retinal surgery, and come back to see him in 6 months. It's funny, (not really) I used a fresnell prism a couple weeks ago, and it worked well for a day, but then didn't help, and made the vision worse, so I quit using it for a couple weeks. But the "funny" part is, that now I'm using it again, and it works fairly well. I'm glad for thr respite. Not looking forward to the membrane thing, and will probably wait till next year. If I have multiple surgeries, I'd like the deductables to be all in one year.