I had my first retinal tear at 9, dettachement at 14. So I get how scary it can be when you’re young. It’s okay allow yourself to feel these things. Don’t bottle it up.

1. The surgery itself isn’t painful at all. If it’s lazer, it’s definitely not a nice feeling though. Kind of like you’re being poked repeatedly, but not really *painful*. After the surgery, it might hurt to look at light and your eye might generally feel uncomfortable. Mine felt kind of heavy and dry. It felt better after just a week and my photophobia (sensitivity to light) was fine after two weeks.

2- Lazer is like 5 minutes. Actual surgery is like 15-30 minutes if I recall correctly but I may be wrong. Depends on the procedure too. Sometimes they put gas in your eye, sometimes tehy put silicone in it.

3- Depends what type of surgery, if it’s lazer, yes you are awake. If you’re doing actual surgery I believe it can either be done awake or asleep, I may be wrong though. I’ve always been asleep, at first because I was so young and more recently because I am a huge pussy.

4- Lazer feels like uncomfortable repeated poking. Actual surgery feels like absolutely nothing.

5- That’s kind of the same question as the previous ones. The surgery itself isn’t that painful, the aftermath is lowkey painful and uncomfortable but manageable.

Feel free to ask me if you have any other questions! And remember everything is gonna be okay.

High myopia and lots of floaters aren't a significant higher risk of retinal detachment. Lots of people here are having other extra conditions that were contributing to retinal detachment such as very major trauma to eye, another diseases. Almost everyone has floaters just not everyone realizes that it has them.

$1
>Retinal detachment occurs when vitreous fluid enters through a retinal tear or hole leading to separation of the retina from the choroid, similar to water behind wallpaper Lifetime risk of retinal detachment is about 0.1% and is higher in patients who are older, have high myopia (nearsightedness greater than –6.0 diopters), have a history of ocular trauma or prior eye surgery, or a family history of retinal detachment.

$1
mild myopia (-4D to -7D) is 21 times more likely to develop retinal detachment, whereas a child with high myopia (-7D and higher) is 44 times more likely to develop this serious condition.
0,1x21 or 0,1x44 is not so much. The eye is growing most rapidly ontil 21th yr thats why until this age risk is highest. Of course there may be other factors that may come into play to many data is missing to asses the risk properly.


I had almost all of procedures for retina detachment and retinal tear, only not scleral buckle.

If theres retinal tear "only" it's Luke a pre stage to retinal detachment like a torn material a laser is used and local anesthesia to block any pain and sensation around eye but patient is awake. Damaged placed is sealed with scar tissue that will strongly hold on its place and if needed abnormalities if founded will be destroyed to prevent future retinal tears or detachments.

If theres bigger area involved, more zones, macula involved, all retina peeling off - that's really bad. Then they put patient to general anestesia - no pain, no memory, no awarness. Use silicone gel/oil - its serious and not high rate of success operation because alredy lots of damage is already happened due to level of retinal detachment. After that patient has to lay face down permanently for set amount of time - I had to lay for 2 months and I still lost sight but I have Retinopathy of Prematurity and probably had bit drunken surgeon. It hurted afterwards as hell lots of doctors advised me to removing this eye because for years no pain medication helped. But I found help after years of agony and I still have this eyeball so maybe in future it can be a part of bionic eye or such.

Theres a some way to have kind of prevention protection from future retinal tear/detachment but they do it only if your case is severe enough. I lost alredy one eye, had 2 serious big tears in right eye, had lots of retinal scars due to ROP and very poor vision so they talked with me about pan-retinal 360° photocoagulation its laser surgery - they destroying 70-80% of your retina to create protective scarring wall that with high success rate won't tear or peel off. You will lost in this burned area all sight but in remaining area vision will remain unaffected. Very skilled and experienced surgeon is needed for this one. Youre awake for this and it's not painfull you're given strong painkillers afterwards.

I’ll share my experience here. I had the silicone oil put in, maybe it’s different if you have the gas. I’m sure the ophthalmologist or whoever will talk to you about what they’re going to do.

1. Not painful. The recovery was kinda painful for me, as my eye was really dry after.
2. It took a few hours for me. From what I remember, I was in by 8 and done by 3 or so. My eye has been through a lot of shit so results may vary lol
3. You’re not awake. I was put under general anaesthesia.
4. For me, I had to lay face down for 4 weeks. I slept a lot, pretty much the only time I was awake was to put in drops and to eat/use the bathroom. I would recommend this because it makes sure the retina sticks.
5. For the most part, it is painless.
6.

I hope that helps. :)

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