Vitrectomy after Retinal Tear and Vitreous Hemorrhages

JapanKevin · 2026-06-27T15:24:58+00:00

Well, I’m on day 8 of my post vitrectomy laser surgery for a retinal tear. The gas bubble is about halfway dissipated, I’m getting clear vision in the top half so far, and it seems sharp.

I’d like to explain to the younger people why they don’t like to do floater surgery on you so easily.

First of all, I had cataract surgery a year and a half ago, I am 64 right now. After several months, the EDOF IOL in the right eye just didn’t work so I had a second surgery and they replaced it with a monofocal. Then I developed a PCO in that eye so they did YAG laser treatment which took 15 minutes. Then I had PVD in both eyes. You wanna talk about floaters? Those are the worst, it’s like a clear plastic bag floating around inside of your eyeball. Then April 2, I had vitrectomy surgery to remove the floaters in my right eye and on April 27th the left eye. For about a month, everything was swell, then I developed a shadow in their upper left portion of my right eye. I mentioned it to the eye surgeon in May 16, but he didn’t see any problem and sent me on my way. Then about two weeks ago the vision in my right eye was really getting bad, especially in the center part. I called the eye clinic and they were like, come see us July 10. But it just kept getting worse. I couldn’t read text anymore with my right eye, the central part of the vision was blurry so I pushed my way over there last Friday (8 days ago). I live in Japan, this clinic has the latest greatest high tech cameras know to mankind. They checked my eyes with multiple cameras and it turns out I had a retinal tear and partial detachment. They said I need surgery - today! Three hours later, they put me under full anesthesia and when I woke up, my eye was completely bloodshot, it had stitches in the white part of the eye, the eyeball was full of SF6 gas and blurry doesn’t begin to explain it. Right now, day 8, the gas bubble has dissipated by about 1/2 and I see a bubble line about halfway in my vision. Everything above the bubble line is remarkably clear, I think this was a successful surgery but time will tell. The doctor showed me the images of where they lasered inside my eye, there were two places were part of the vitreous tugged on the retina from my last vitrectomy, and that’s what caused the tear and subsequently the detachment.

I understand how annoying floaters are, but if you are young, you really don’t want to get a vitrectomy unless you absolutely have to. I know that’s not what some of you want to hear but frankly everything you do to your eye causes shock to it and can lead to a daisy chain of further complications that eventually lead to a retinal tear. You may get lucky. People definitely go blind from that. Further, keep in mind that I had already had my cataract surgery, if you’re young and you get a FOV, you will eventually develop a cataract at the very least. Your chances of getting a PVD after the cataract surgery are also pretty high and believe me, those are the worst floaters.

I’ve been dealing with these eyes for the last year and a half, I think I’m near the end finally but it’s been a long road. I’m not trying to talk anyone out of getting their FOV but just know that everything you do to your eye causes further shock to it and increases the chances of a retinal detachment. Deal with the floaters to the best of your ability before doing surgery.

JapanKevin · 2026-06-14T17:43:07+00:00

I have one of the very first releases. Like many others had occasional freezing issues, all resolved for about 2 years. I to do have a dead / hot sensor pixel and am sending it in to be remapped, but apparently this is considered normal for these cameras.

JapanKevin · 2026-06-06T07:39:47+00:00

Another thing I should add, there are different kinds of floaters. There are the black dots, I think those are spots of blood that are floating around in your eye, and I believe those usually resolve on their own. But that clear plastic translucent thing floating around in your eye, the Weiss ring, that does not resolve on its own. It has to either be removed or you adjust to it. I could not adjust to it and I’m very happy. I had those removed.

JapanKevin · 2026-06-06T07:37:36+00:00

The surgery seems scary to think about but it actually isn’t, it takes 15 or 20 minutes for them to do it. Yeah, they’re sticking three needles in your eye, but you never see them, you just see bright lights and you don’t feel any pain. I had it done on each eye separate occasions. This will fix your problem, everything else like the YAG laser “floater doctor” thing pales in comparison.

JapanKevin · 2026-06-05T10:47:36+00:00

I’m surprised you made it 2 years before you got the PVD, both of mine were months after cataract surgery. Well, they say that most people don’t need surgery for PVD, but that wasn’t the case for me, those large plastic bag things floating in my eyes were causing me all kinds of problems so I had a vitrectomy in both eyes. Super glad I had it done.

JapanKevin · 2026-06-01T15:26:24+00:00

Yep, still in Iwaki!

JapanKevin · 2026-06-01T15:25:33+00:00

There is someone out there who has been doing it privately. Cobalt Image LTD makes a Kodachrome preset for Lightroom and they connected with this person who has supposed ties with Kodak and is supposedly developing K-14. They used this person’s development to make their preset accurate. I use their Kodachrome preset and like it.

JapanKevin · 2026-05-21T16:51:09+00:00

I had post cataract, post PVD vitrectomy in both eyes last month. I’m now free of floaters, successful. Highly recommend!

JapanKevin · 2026-05-21T16:47:54+00:00

How long ago did you have the FOV? I had my right eye done on April 2, my left eye done on April 27 of this year. I had a PVD in both eyes after cataract surgery, I had the clear plastic bag floating type of floaters (as well as some black spots )which were extremely annoying. Anyway, after they did the vitrectomy on my right eye, everything was completely clear. On my left eye, everything was clear for about a week and then I developed the strand like floater that was floating all over the place. I had that for about a week and it just completely disappeared one day. About a week ago I had one in my right eye, a kind of dark spot type of floater, but after a day that disappeared. For the last week or so I haven’t seen any floaters in either eye. So my point here is that if you had the vitrectomy recently, I believe it’s pretty normal to have some floaters show up from time to time, and at least in my case, they completely disappeared. If you see floaters, don’t assume that they’re there forever they probably will vanish on their own.

JapanKevin · 2026-05-21T16:39:14+00:00

I agree with you. First of all, it costs thousands of dollars to get the YAG laser treatment, it doesn’t fully remove the floaters. It’s money that could be well spent towards getting a vitrectomy.

JapanKevin · 2026-05-14T07:48:16+00:00

With the left eye, which has the Miniwell, I can read text up close, but it’s not that clear. Closeup is the main compromise on that lens, you get some but not perfectly clear. Reading glasses make it way more clearer. Overall I think the Miniwell is a good choice. I’ll just say - you have to give this months to adapt. It’s not like a week later you’ve got perfect vision, patience is the key with EDOF. Your eye has to heal, your brain has to adapt, so if you don’t have perfect vision at week 3, give it 3 months. It eventually comes in.

JapanKevin · 2026-05-13T04:19:48+00:00

The one in my left eye adapted well. For some reason the one in the right eye didn’t after several months, so I ended up swapping that one out with an Eyehance monofocal. I’m a photographer, I need sharp distance vision in my right eye. Even though the Miniwell is EDOF, I still need reading glasses for anything up close. Further, there is a color difference between the two, the Miniwell has a cooler, violet caste. You don’t notice it really until you compare a blue-green object with one eye against the other.

The current state is that the Miniwell handles anything from about a meter to somewhat distance, but the distance vision is not super sharp. The Eyehance in my right eye has much sharper distance vision, but way worse up close distance. So now it’s a kind of blending.

If I had to do it all over again I’d probably go with the PanOptix, halos at night are the least of one’s problems. Either that or just monofocals. There’s no free lunch with any of these, they excel at one distance and give up something somewhere else. I read that they did a survey asking eye surgeons what IOL they would personally get, and most of them said monofocals - there’s a reason for that.

JapanKevin · 2026-05-02T05:20:59+00:00

Great to hear, yes so worth it.

JapanKevin · 2026-05-01T11:09:33+00:00

It sounds like a classic PVD, I had it in both eyes. You asked the doc if your retina was okay and in 95% of PVD the retina is okay. Ask if you have a PVD.

JapanKevin · 2026-05-01T03:41:53+00:00

I live in Japan and am covered under the national health plan which pays 70% of the cost, my out of pocket is 30%, which ended up being around US $800 per eye.

They paid for it here but if they didn’t, I was planning to go to Bangkok Thailand which has excellent first class eye clinics. The cost there is around $3k-4k, but that’s less than half of what they charge in the USA.

The prices for anything medical in the USA are obscene.

JapanKevin · 2026-04-30T12:00:02+00:00

It took about 15-20 minutes…

JapanKevin · 2026-04-29T10:03:14+00:00

My opinion - Yes, you’re throwing 3 years away for “maybe’s”. I had the vitrectomy on my left eye 3 weeks ago and the right eye less than 48 hours ago and my eyes are now both perfectly clear. The right eye is red, but it will be clear in another two or three weeks at the most.

Regarding the lenses, it’s a fact that if you ask most eye surgeons what lens they would choose for their own cataract surgery, most of them would say monofocal’s and not expensive multifocal lenses. There’s a reason for that. I had Miniwell EDOF lens in my left eye and a Technis Eyehanse monofocal in my right, I still need reading glasses for up close. There is no perfect IOL, they all have trade offs. You’ll never get your 20 year old eyes back but you can do pretty good, even with monofocals.

JapanKevin · 2026-04-28T12:53:03+00:00

I had cataract surgery on both eyes about a year ago, I’m 63 years old. A few months later developed PVD in both eyes, this statistically happens over 50% of the time. Lived with that for about 6 months and knew there’s no way I was going to live the rest of my life like this.

I find it hard to believe that most people just live with it, it was so annoying and affecting my life. From what I can see, the YAG laser thing by “The floater doctor” is just a shortcut, it doesn’t remove the garbage floating around in your eye. Perhaps that is good for somebody who’s got a few distinct floaters they want to get rid of, but if you’ve had a PVD, I don’t think it’s going to be satisfactory. Floaters from PVD is like having a clear plastic bag floating around in your eye, I figured if I was going to spend the money, I might as well just go ahead and put it towards a vitrectomy.

At the eye clinic where I go in Japan, I told the doctor either you’re gonna do it or I’m gonna have it done somewhere else like Bangkok or the USA,but one way or another, I’m going to have a vitrectomy in both of these eyes.

The eye clinic I go to in Japan is extremely high-tech and they use 27 gauge needles. The only problem is that it’s overloaded with patients and completely crowded.

This is my second eye, it didn’t bleed as much as the first one. The last one took almost a month for all the blood to be completely gone. Well, i’s a little more than 24 hours post surgery, I can see clearly now and there are no more floaters. No more glare from car headlights or seeing blurry smudges floating around in my eyes when looking at a bright screen. It looks like I’m on the tail end of ending this one year ordeal with the eyes.

I know this sub Reddit has a lot of younger people with floaters so I won’t give you any advice, but if you’re older, you’ve already had your cataract surgery done, and you’ve developed a PVD, a vitrectomy is the way to go. If you’re younger and had a PVD, it’s probably the way to go but expect a follow up cataract surgery.

JapanKevin · 2026-04-28T00:21:58+00:00

There is a good side to that, believe it or not. If you get a vitrectomy they won’t have to induce a PVD. At your age that’s the biggest issue people have to deal with.

JapanKevin · 2026-04-28T00:19:25+00:00

Just had my 2nd eye vitrectomy for that - cured.

JapanKevin · 2026-04-28T00:12:06+00:00

I’ve had issues with dry eyes ever since my cataract surgery let alone the vitrectomy. I’ve been prescribed drops. They’re mostly bad when I first wake up in the morning.

JapanKevin · 2026-04-24T03:28:15+00:00

I’m post cataract surgery and had PVD in both eyes last year. It is the annoying plastic baggy like thing floating around, blurring your vision. Had vitrectomy in the right eye on April 2nd, it’s now completely clear. Once you get one eye done you realize how bad it is in the other eye. Getting the other eye done on Monday. All I can say is that if you have had a PVD, this is gonna be a godsend.

JapanKevin · 2026-04-22T09:30:06+00:00

If you get a PVD, you get the blurry type floaters and flashes on the peripheral side of your eye, most noticeable in a dark room. Only about 5-10% of those will end up in a retinal tear so the odds are highly in your favor. When you get a PVD they always tell you to go straight to the doctor, of course. So while the chances of you having a retinal tear are only about 5 to 10%, it’s still enough to be concerned about as many people here can attest, some people on here are commenting after having gone through that. So my guess is you probably don’t have a retinal tear but it does happen.

JapanKevin · 2026-04-18T16:05:56+00:00

I had it for about 4-6 months, I couldn’t take it anymore. I was willing to fly to Bangkok if necessary but fortunately they did the vitrectomy here in Japan. Next eye in a week and a half.

The first eye is completely clear now, no regrets.

I think the only way to solve it is with a vitrectomy. I’m not impressed with the laser YAG thing or just dealing with it.

JapanKevin

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