Your retina doctor has already discussed your care and they have recommended you have retina surgery to fix your condition. Most of the time the internal paperwork at our practice will be done on the day this decision is made. Occasionally we will need to do further paperwork prior to the day of surgery. At this point most of the coordination is handled through our surgery scheduler.
Some patients require medical clearance from their primary care doctor prior to their surgery. Our surgery scheduler will help coordinate this clearance and determine the date, time and location of your surgery. Please feel free to consider this well trained coordinator a resource through the course of your surgery.
Most of our surgeries are performed in ambulatory surgery centers or the outpatient surgery departments of hospitals. Typically we ask you to arrive 1-2 hours prior to scheduled surgery time and you will be discharged within an hour of your surgery in most cases. We do the great majority of our cases with local anesthesia so there is less risk to our patients.
Typically we ask our patients not to eat or drink after midnight the night before the procedure. You will need somebody to bring you to surgery and drive you home after surgery. We recommend you are with someone the entire day of your surgery. The surgical procedure will take anywhere from 30 minutes to several hours, depending on the complexity of the case. Most surgeries are not painful, but if we think you may have pain from the surgery, we will provide you with pain medication. Some surgeries require you to sit or lie in a specific position to make them successful. We will provide you with information about any specific positioning requirements following the surgery.
We see almost all of our patients in our office either later the same day of surgery or the following day to remove the patch and check on the status of the eye. At that time we review care for the eye over the next several weeks. Coordinating this same day or next day visit is important in advance as you will need a ride to this appointment as well.
We usually see you 1 to 2 weeks after the initial post op visit for another check on your eye. The exact timing of this will vary depending on the nature of your eye disease. we are available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week for any questions after surgery at our toll free number (800) 627-2020.
