Questions and debates about blindness:

Hear Again said:
the epidemic of rop in the 1950s was strictly due to high oxygen levels administered to premature infants since little was known about its' effects on the eyes.

i have congenital cataracts, but do not know how much of a part they played in my total blindness. my current opthalmologist (whom i've been seeing for the past 4 years) says that it's possible my cataracts didn't blind me, but the fact that they existed didn't help matters either. instead, they created an opaque film over my eyes. she feels that what actually played a larger part in blinding me was rop due to my retinas being fully detached.
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I see. So your blindness was mainly due to ROP but the cateracts complicated things? Did you get them removed?

I had a friend with cateracts. He was born blind with rubella damage. When he was 3 he had cateracts removed and he had fairly good sight after that. He could read normal print and understand sign language visually.
 
no, none of my opthalmologists ever discussed having my cataracts removed since there would be no point. i'm totally blind mainly due to detached retinas and the only way for me to see would be to have surgery to address the rop (which isn't available yet since medical science hasn't developed a surgery for retinal diseases).
 
Hear Again said:
no, none of my opthalmologists ever discussed having my cataracts removed since there would be no point. i'm totally blind mainly due to detached retinas and the only way for me to see would be to have surgery to address the rop (which isn't available yet since medical science hasn't developed a surgery for retinal diseases).
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Thanks. That makes sense.

I've heard of some people having operations for ROP. I presume that has to do with which of the 5 levels of ROP they have. I presume you have the most severe type.
 
typeingtornado19 said:
Detached retinas do hurt, a friend of mine had them.
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How does it happen? What causes a retina to detach itself? How old was your friend? Do you know how long it hurts for? I heard glycoma being painful but don't know about other eye conditions.
 
dreama said:
Thanks. That makes sense.

I've heard of some people having operations for ROP. I presume that has to do with which of the 5 levels of ROP they have. I presume you have the most severe type.
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yes. 5 is the most severe case while 1 is the least severe. those who have rop in stages between 1-4 can have surgery while those like myself who were at stage 5 cannot. having said that, i did have 2 eye surgeries when i was 3 and 5 which were of no help. all of the opthalmologists i've had said that any future surgery on my eyes would be a risk given the fact that they are so small and weak.
 
Hear Again said:
yes. 5 is the most severe case while 1 is the least severe. those who have rop in stages between 1-4 can have surgery while those like myself who were at stage 5 cannot. having said that, i did have 2 eye surgeries when i was 3 and 5 which were of no help. all of the opthalmologists i've had said that any future surgery on my eyes would be a risk given the fact that they are so small and weak.
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That's interesting. Do you know how common ROP at level 5 is?

I hope you don't mind me asking all these questions. Some of the characters from the book I am writing are blind with ROP.
 
dreama said:
That's interesting. Do you know how common ROP at level 5 is?

I hope you don't mind me asking all these questions. Some of the characters from the book I am writing are blind with ROP.
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i don't mind at all, dreama. <smile>

i can't give you percentages, but the number of rop cases at stage 5 is significantly less than stages 1-4. stage 1 is the most common followed by stage 2 and so on.
 
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