On the outside, I try to project an image of having it all together. But underneath that, I'm kind of a disaster. Hence... the name of the site: GlossyVeneer. Remember back in 2006 when I had to get my tear ducts plugged? Well, one of them made an exit today.
Well, it made an exit on Saturday… but it was completely removed from my being today.
On Saturday I had a little encounter with a makeup brush and the inside of my eye that kind of dislodged the plug. I could tell by pulling my lower lid back that the plug was not in the tear duct at all. The plug was just resting on the edge of my lid, it felt itchy and a little annoying but not outright painful. When I rubbed at it with my finger, I couldn’t budge the plug though, which seemed very odd to me. I thought it would be best to see the doc and get his opinion on the situation.
I called the eye doctor yesterday and got into the office this morning. Today’s visit did give me some interesting encounters with a person in the waiting room… but that’s another post. The eye doctor I’ve been seeing for nearly 4 years now moved away so I had to see one of the other ophthalmologists in the practice. He came in, looked through the little binoculars they have, said “Hmmm….” a couple times then sat back.
“Well, you get the prize for the new and weird thing to me for the month.”
He then proceeded to tell me that apparently my body is starting to reject the plugs, it doesn’t like the foreign material. Part of that rejecting is my eyes seem to be building some kind of membrane around the plugs, in both eyes. When the left eye was assaulted by a makeup brush and the plug was dislodged, it apparently got wrapped around the membrane. Thus the reason that it was sitting there on the edge and wouldn’t move.
He said his first measure would be to try using forceps to just “yank” it out of there. Hopefully the membrane would just snap and the plug would be free. If “tugging” didn’t work and it seemed to “resist” too much, then he would work to cut the membrane.
Are you shuddering? I was after this description. Part of me wanted to say, “Please don’t tell me the specifics! I just need to know if you’re removing it!”
So he had me put my chin in the little rest and press my forehead against the top part of the eye doctor binocular set-up. Then the nurse put her hand on the back of my head and said in the most chipper voice possible, “I’m just going to hold you in place to make sure you don’t move back during this!”
The doctor started moving toward me with the forceps… and… after what basically amounted to the equivalent of a quick pin prick, the whole thing was over.
The doctor held the plug in his forceps and the nurse moved quickly to get what looked like a square piece of tape with adhesive backing ready. She pulled the paper off the back, he set the plug on a piece of paper, she pushed the tape on top of it to secure it to the paper and thus my punctal plug has now become a part of my chart.
I have to return in 3 months to review how the membrane is healing in the left eye and see what the right eye looks like. At that point he said we would evaluate what course would be taken to counter my dry eyes. For now I’m supposed to be putting eye drops in at least 4 times a day. The doc said I may have some bloody tears throughout the day, but I just had one slightly pink tinged tear right after the plug was removed and haven’t seen any sign of blood since then.
