eye weight

[Karen]

Help, I have a decision to make.  I have a numb cornea and paralysis on my left side I had the 12/7 done and a wieght put in   My eye doesn't open all the way with the weight, only half way.  The eye doctor will take the weight out and put a lighter one in to open the eye more but he says that will give me a greater chance of my eye drying out and running in to problems   Right now it will close all th way at night and any time I want to close it. so I will be taking a chance it won't close all the way with a lighter weight.  I don't know what ot do, I am so tired of having my eye only open half way and shutting it a lot because of the heavy weight.  Does any body have some input, especially thoses of you with a numb cornea and face?  I am using eye gel drops in the day and ointment at night.  Karen

[jacobs]

 Hi Karen,I don't know if this is a case of the grass being greener or not.I have a lighter weight and am only able to close my eye if I really concentrate.My eye dries out constantly and I find that  have to use lacrilube most days which makes my sight fuzzy.I guess you have to weigh the pros and cons of each (no pun intended)
 Is there any chance that you will regain movement on your left side which would make the weight just a temporary inconvenience?
                                                                                                                                            Jacobs

[Jeanlea]

Hi Karen,

I also have similar eye issues to yours.  I have both facial numbness and paralysis.  I had a gold weight put in one week after my initial surgery.  They didn't even let me out of the hospital with it.  I believe that mine is 1.4 grams, which is fairly heavy.  It had to be that heavy due to the shape of my eye.  Apparently it's more bulging than most.  I can close it if I concentrate on it.  It helps it I look down at the same time.  My eye doctor didn't like the fact that my open was so open also.  He suggested I get an eye lift and get the corner sewn shut a tiny bit.  I didn't like that idea at first, but my ENT said it would be a good idea.  I had it done the end of April.  I'm glad now because it looks fine and it's much easier for me to get total closure.  I use PM Refresh Eyes at night and Refresh Liguigel during the day.  I put it in first thing in the morning and 2 or 3 more times during the day. 

I know that they say the gold weights aren't permanent, but after a year I'm thinking mine will be.  You might want to try the lighter weight and if that doesn't give you good closure you could consider and eye lift.  It's something else to think about. 

Jean

[daylilly]

Hi,
Well I just had a gold weight put in two days ago. I'm about 13 mo. out of surgery with no blink and was tired of the blurry
vision. I received a 1.6 gram weight. The weight is low profile which means it is thin and wide so hopefully it won't be
as noticeable in my upper lid. The doctor also took a piece of cartilage out of my ear to build up my lower lid so that
I would have better closure during the blink. That made sense to me since when I watch my good eye blink the lower
lid comes up a little when the upper lid comes down. The choice of weight size is a bit of an art and does have to change
sometimes. The surgery took about an hour and I was in a twilight sleep which was actually kind of interesting. I was
aware of everything that was happening and was able to carry on a conversation during the process. I was given darvocet
for pain but I'm into day 3 and don't need anything for pain. I still look like I came out of a Rocky movie and I lost the fight.
The doctor said we would be able to tell how the weight was doing in a month after all the swelling went done. In theory I
might not need any more drops at that point and will have clear vision since I won't have lacrilube smeared in my eye. The whole
experience was much less scary than I anticipated. Perhaps that was because I've been through brain surgery. I will post again
when the swelling goes down.
Sue

[cush]

I cant blink my eye as well.  I did have the eye lid stitch and lift. It helped alot my eyes visually look balanced and it reduced my dry eye in a big way. I still use ointment a dab in the morning and usually one at bed time. I live in the desert so I get hot air all the time.
I have thought about the gold weight its still a option for me.

Blurry eyed but alive!
Cush

[daylilly]

I haven't had my one month gold weight eye check up yet and still have a bit of swelling but I'm not needing
lacrilube and can finally see clearly after a year. I also now have experience with the droopy eye look. My kids said
my old eye looked like a glass eye and the new eye looks like a lazy eye. I feel a little like Humpty Dumpty-I feel
like I fell off the wall and as I'm being put back together things aren't exactly what they used to be. The new eye
is very comfortable but smaller looking than the non AN eye. The lower lid was built up to be a little higher than the
non AN side and the upper lid droops down lower than the non AN side so there is much less surface area for
moisture to evaporate from. I have to think about closing the AN eye to get a blink but when I do I now get full
closure of the eye and I guess it can pull moisture up from the lower lid. I think that this is one of those procedures
that is a bit of an art based on experience. I wish the eyes were a little bit more symmetrical looking but I'm loving
the clear vision (except for all the dust which I apparently hadn't been able to see).

[Obita]

Joef put a link to a very interesting eye lid weight on frappr.com/acousticneuroma   Down at the bottom click on IN THE NEWS.  It is for Blinkeze External Lid Weights.  Maybe they could be used with surgical lid weights???  If you have a lighter weight so your eye opens but need the extra weight at night???  Just a thought.  Kathy

[Pembo]

I was just going to post about Blinkeze external eye weights. My facial therapist told me about them and said he's seen great results from people who have them. He told me to talk to my opthamologist about it.