From Darkness to Light: Eyesight of a 71 year old Glaucoma Patient successfully preserved at Shalby Glaucoma Centre

Posted On: April 2, 2020

“Mr Prem Kumar [name changed], a 70 years old gentleman from Mumbai, came to us in November, 2019. He was suffering from diabetes since the last 20 years. Unfortunately, about 10 years ago, he developed a complication in the eye due to diabetes, known as “Diabetic Retinopathy”. Gradually, he lost vision in his eyes. He went through several procedures but all possible efforts could not save the vision of his right eye.

He was managing his life and routines with limited vision in the left eye. In April 2019, he encountered another problem. This time it was a problem that threatened the remaining vision in his left eye. He developed a disease – Glaucoma, in his left eye, which so far had supported his life, and slowly started losing vision again. The problem got aggravated so much so that it was difficult for him to move from lighted areas to dark rooms. In the evenings, his movements outside the house got severely impacted due to the bright headlights of vehicles. His daughter residing in USA wanted to help him. So he travelled to USA for the treatment.

There, he underwent a laser treatment four months ago. It did not help to control his Glaucoma. Following this, he underwent a surgery three months ago, unfortunately, this also did not work adequately, his glaucoma remained uncontrolled and he was at risk of going blind again.

He returned to India and came to the Glaucoma Department of Shalby Hospitals, Ahmedabad. This department is headed by Dr Binita Thakore, a Senior Glaucoma Specialist with more than 20 years of experience and exclusively treating patients of glaucoma.

The patient was first examined thoroughly. Then he was explained that though multiple procedures were carried out, he still needed one more major surgery to preserve his vision and control the disease. This time, the risks associated with surgery were much higher as his eye had been through multiple procedural trauma.

This patient decided to fight back to preserve his eyesight and underwent another surgery in December, 2019 at Shalby Hospitals, Ahmedabad. This time, he got a much better outcome. His operation was successful, his disease was controlled and his vision got well preserved. When asked, Dr Binita Thakore explained “As multiple surgeries had been carried out, there was significant scarring and hardly any healthy tissue was left to carry out another surgery. There was no margin of error as it was the last chance for him.We pray that this be his last surgery and he continues to live a comfortable life.”