Hi Gay,
I had three rounds of orbital decompression. I had
two, 3 wall decompression surgeries and a 4 wall decompression/
craniotomy. In my case I had no outward signs of the eye
disease bulging or swelling but my vision was
severely threatened behind the eyes by my optic nerve
with uncontrollable swelling there.
For me this surgery saved my sight. You may want to discuss with
your neuro-opthalmologist what other treatment options are also available to you and maybe get a second or possibly a third
opinion. The eye disease follows no particular pattern and
different doctor’s have different views on how to treat it.
What stage are you with your Graves’ disease? Most doctor’s
tend to wait till for surgery till they feel their
patients Graves’ disease is under control.
On the average, for me I was hospitalized 4-5 days. Other people I have talked to were in much shorter then me. What I recall was some numbness and swelling, bruising and sleeping with ice packs around the
eye with my head elevated. I looked like I had a shiner for a
few days but it faded away. I had an occuplastic surgeon do the surgery and there are no scars today or you can’t even tell I had the surgery done.
After those surgeries I had the strabismus surgery. I never neeed any eyelid surgery as I had no bulging or swelling.
Feel free to e-mail me if you have any specific questions.
I underwent 5 eye surgeries in a year and a half and it has been almost two years now and the eye disease basically burned
itself out. My doctor’s do not forsee me needing any more surgery and everything has been stable these days.
Dee