I was NOT a brave girl at the hospital.

[Timeforatincture]

Had to have an injection into my eye.

Doesn't hurt but it's very pushy and I feel very got at.
I know heaps of MNers have had a lot worse but I'm a wimp.

Anyone else had this?

Painful or not, it sounds incredibly traumatic- poor you. Hope you are having a restful evening and some treats. 💐

I had to have emergency laser treatment to my eye a few years ago. I was in shock. They did put drops in but I could still feel the laser twanging at the back inside my eye. I had to get him to stop after a short time because my eyesight in my "good" eye was going black round the edges and I was going to faint. I lay on the floor saying "aaaah, so cool, so solid...." with the poor guy looking down again me saying "just tell me when you're ready again" [never!]
I got through it. And when I went for the check up THEY DID SOME MORE!

Anyway, I think anyone who has that stuff done while they are awake is a star!!

It's barbaric if Moorfields aren't using local anaesthetic. I get anaesthetic drops for my pressure tests.

To answer your question very simply, at the time of giving it is the only known option to work. In my time in the job various things have been tried, but before I finished the only safe option was intra-ocular injection to deliver medication to where it could be useful, many other proposed methods failed early testing.
Patients can & occasionally do refuse treatment, but the alternative is often deterioration in vision. So for many they choose treatment, I hope I’d be brave enough to if/when the time comes.
It is not done to be mean it’s done as the best option to save sight. Over my time in the job I have watch a lot of research look promising but not actually reach treatment stage.
Being able to give the treatment available & reduce patient sight loss was a privilege & many of my patients attended regularly (4-8 weekly for repeat injections) for years to maintain their sight.

Yup, had eye injections many times.

It helped that the first time, there was no advance warning - I'd been expecting them to give me the emergency drops, but instead the doctor said 'nope this needs an injection'. By the time I realised what that Actually Fucking Meant, they were ready to do it. And the nurse gave me a huge hug when it was done.

Subsequent times have always been unpleasant, but I know they don't administer them if they aren't really needed. Plus I feel hard as nails when I tell people 😄

That's what they had to do to me when I had my eye op when I was six. I had a nurse on each limb holding me down.

You have my total sympathy OP.

I can see better now slightly shortsighted than before I started all the treatments. If I had refused I would be blind now.

I do love to hear that the nurses have been so kind. That must really make a difference, and they know it.

She was amazing. I was an absolute total wimp when I had to swallow a camera. I’d already had the camera up my nose and down my throat in a previous session. I told the staff I was terrified, they were really good but I still gagged and gagged.

I was with my mum at an eye clinic after she’d had a corneal transplant. The doc came at her eye with an injection. She never flinched, I thought I was going to pass out! In the end the doc said she was at the wrong angle to get it right and he’d make her a new appointment. Phew!

Sorry - I didn't mean the actual delivery of the sight treatment - I understand the delivery method and it's mechanics and why it's optimal - but why can't we as patients be made as unaware of the process as possible should it be necessary or if that's what we need to get us into the room or we are distressed - even my cat has a local if they need to flush an abscess (I suspect they would rip the vet to shreds without it) - so if the treatment (emergency accepted) was pre-arranged - then use the huge variety of chemicals we have to reduce anxiety - it seems very unfair to deny patients this option due to cost/protocol etc. (hence my self medicating - some other posts indicate that alcohol is also used to do the same...)

However bad the intra ocular injections sound, they are actually less barbaric than what preceded them.
35 years ago I had a very premature baby and she developed an eye condition that was very common in prem babies who needed a lot of supplementary oxygen, called retinopathy of prematurity. The treatment then was cryotherapy (a kind of freezing treatment to the eyes).
When my poor wee mite came back from the procedure she had bruised, swollen eyes like she'd gone 10 rounds with Mike Tyson. I cried when I saw her poor wee face. Even worse the treatment didn't work very well and it was thought she'd be functionally blind. She died at 9 months old so I never knew for sure.
Standard treatment now is intra ocular injections. They are horrible to have but not a fraction of how awful the cryotherapy must have been.

Thank you for what you do. I have always been squeamish about my eyes and could never wear contact lenses so I understand how some of these posters feel BUT when the alternative is losing my sight then THAT is the most frightening thing.

I am grateful that this treatment is available to me on the NHS and, at my hospital, I only had to wait two weeks from seeing the consultant to getting the laser treatment. I'm not brave I just prioritise my fears and get on with it.

I couldn't go through with this.
Absolutely 100% not.

I understand losing one's sight is 'worse' in terms of how detrimental to life it is long-term, but I would face that rather than have an eye injection while conscious. They'd have to put me under-which I know isn't the norm, but it would be that or it wasn't happening.

I just did a quick google and a clinic near me does offer GA for this procedure, but I'd go private if I had to.

Adding that it isn't necessarily about pain. I have severe reactions to dental injections and before alternatives I had a filling without anesthetic. I was only a child too.

I was once beaten, strangled and thrown down a flight of stairs and still went to work the following day. I have chronic back pain and I still work out most days unless it is so bad that it is meaning I am too tired to drive. I'm not a wimp.

Just something about this procedure that I would absolutely draw the line at.

Well done, OP!

I think the protocol is to half the max. level of sedation for folks over 60 as well - there definitely is some age related stuff in play (chap I worked with has regular cystoscopies - but because he had his first under a general back in his twenties he continued with this as he got older. Apparently the consultant said "I don't find it necessary for men over 35 as everything is more flexible" - handy to know if you ever needed it).

A lot of the reason we have to “endure” this shit is because the NHS is too tight to shell out for anesthesia- I paid privately to get a gastroscopy with propofol after the first arsehole didn’t listen to me and said sedation would be fine. It wasn’t and they weren’t able to complete the procedure so they traumatised me for nothing.

The rest of the time it’s that they simply do not believe people are - for what we reason - simply too frightened or distressed by the procedure and think that if it was “bad enough” we would do it.

Theres a name for those too.

Why they can’t give anaesthesia for this I do not know. I would probably have go blind since I wouldn’t be able to have it done otherwise.

Me too-and I fight for it. I have had a smear under G.A. My ex had a laser cell removal under G.A. If you stand up and fight-they'll do it.

I think that’s it. You have to make a scene basically.

And no longer will I be afraid to do so. They can fuck off putting money before my trauma thank you very fucking much.

This is basically what I have saved for. If they deny me I can go elsewhere and pay for it. Disgusting that I have had to but there it is.

They don’t give a shit about us.

Hi - do you have any tips? I quoted the BCSP "reasonable efforts to provide enhanced sedation" and met a wall of silence - so I suspect those at the coal face can't make those decisions as it would involve another team. I think the system isn't joined up enough in reality rather than staff being mean (I hope so, but I once offered to fetch a G&A cylinder from one floor to another when I heard a lady who asked for it for a catheter insertion be told "we don't have that here" and it was like I'd invented fire)

Had an ingrowing eyelash removed at Moorfields a couple of years ago which involved tweezers up and under the eyelash. The relief from the pain was so immediate I almost hugged the doctor.

I paid privately for a gastroscopy with sedation was at NHS hospital. Had an argument with the HCP in charge over it who refused. Produced all the paperwork and she relented. The bitch shoved the tube down before sedation.

Letting something go into your eye goes against every instinct.
I naturally close my eyes even when having something painful like the dentist or a blood test. Having to keep your eye open, then something being done to the eye sounds horrific! You did well getting it done!

That sounds horrific - not sure why there is such a hurry - are you saying this happened even with you paying privately for sedation? If so what sort (propofol?) as was I hoping once you get as far as a private procedure that things would be a LOT easier?

It's lala juice you recall nothing afterwards. I was just very unlucky the woman was bitching about having to do twelve gastroscopies that day to a colleague in front of the patients.

I do moan a lot about the constant tests I have because I'm undiagnosed. But I'm so glad (they think it's eye related) that apart from the tests involving the wires and the many eye drops I have that generally speaking, it's nothing too traumatic