Anonymous
Hi Karen and welcome!
Yes, much of the time the effects of Graves’ to the eyes will stop after around two years. This is a good reason to be patient if possible and not rush into surgerys.
However, some of the damage that Graves’ can do to the eyes may linger after that time, such as double vision and proptosis (bulging) and you may require surgery to correct some of this. I will be having strabismus surgery in a week or so to correct my double vision, but the proptosis went away pretty well.
If your eyes start bulging out too much and your vision starts to be impaired, there are a few things they can do. First thing they will usually do is to put you on steroids (prednisone) which can relieve some of the inflamation to the eye muscles. Sometimes the side effects of prednisone are intolerable for people tho. They may have to treat for Glaucoma also as it often comes secondary to the GD.
If the eyes continue to get worse, one thing they consider is orbital irradiation. What they do is zap the eye muscles with radiation (like they do cancer) which can stabilize the swelling of the muscles. They claim a 80% “success rate” (whatever that is) using this method. I had this done.
The next step in severe cases is what Jake had done, Orbital Decompression. They go in and remove material from the eye socket so the eyeball can drop back into the head.
No one can say how much trouble you are gonna have with your eyes but most people do not have as much trouble as Jake and I. I was almost completely blind at one point tho, and now my vision is close to 20/20. Kinda wierd vision, but it is pretty good.
Hope this doesn’t scare you, but just be aware of the possibilities.
Talk about long winded!
Bruce