Living with Diabetic Retinopathy

I have been diabetic for about 19 years and have never had any complications until about 4 years ago. My eye problems didn’t have any symptoms at all, one night out of the clear blue sky I started to see small floaters in my right eye, this was on a Friday night. By the next morning I was completely blind in my right eye. I waited until Monday and ran to my eye doctor, and he quickly sent me to a Retinal Specialist the same day. My Retinal had detached, and my eye was full of blood, that’s why I couldn’t see. A week later I was in the hospital having surgery on that eye.

The surgery was terrible, I wouldn’t wish that on my worst enemy, After the surgery 3 weeks later I developed a Cataract in the same eye and had to have another surgery within weeks of each other, my days were very painful, but I got through it, even though it took about 4 months to heal completely. Now my vision is 20/25, which is great and I had one of the best doctors in the world. This was about 4 years ago and everything has been fine, but I’m now having problems with the left eye. My doctor told me that my blood vessels in both my eyes were leaking fluid, I had to go through about 4 laser surgeries on both eyes. Just last week I had a laser on my left eye, and the laser was no party, my doctor had to paralyze my left eye because the surgery was so painful, but I made it through again.

I had the surgery last Monday and now I am seeing flashing lights in my eyes, this is very terrible. I would love to hear other stories from other people that have had the same surgery, and I don’t know why I see the flashing lights all day but maybe someone else can help.