Ocular Prosthetics in Denver, CO

Eye removal can be performed under local anesthesia or general anesthesia. Our priority is to ensure that you are comfortable both emotionally and physically during your procedure and afterward. To achieve this, a local anesthetic may be administered at the end of your procedure to provide longer-lasting comfort after your initial anesthesia wears off.

It is common to develop a headache and nausea after this procedure. This can last a day or two but is typically manageable with a combination of over-the-counter medications, together with appropriate prescription nausea and pain medications to keep you as comfortable as possible as you recover.

Recovery after eye removal surgery varies depending on the reason for surgery, the type of procedure performed, and whether socket reconstruction is needed. Some swelling, bruising, tenderness, discharge, or temporary discomfort can occur as the socket heals.

Our team will provide instructions for medication use, activity limits, hygiene, follow-up visits, and when to begin the prosthetic fitting process. In many cases, a custom prosthetic eye can be made several weeks after surgery once healing has progressed.

Advances in medicine ensure that the loss of an eye does not have to have a severely detrimental impact on a person’s appearance or sense of well-being. During enucleation or evisceration surgery, an ocular implant is placed in the eye socket to restore normal volume, and later a custom prosthesis is created that closely resembles a normal eye and restores the face’s natural contours.

Generally, patients can expect their prosthetic eye to be made 4 to 6 weeks after their initial surgery. The prosthesis is worn over the ocular implant behind the eyelids and is much like a large contact lens.

Generally, it is not painful at all, and most people wear their eye prosthesis 24/7. A prosthetic eye may become uncomfortable in certain situations, such as tear buildup, infection, allergies, a common cold, or dry eye syndrome. We are happy to discuss strategies to help you manage your prosthesis to minimize the risk of discomfort. For example, dryness-related discomfort can be managed by applying lubricating eye drops to the surface of the prosthetic.

Prosthetic eyes are made to look extremely natural. The sclera and color of your artificial eye are expected to look just like those of your natural eye. The prosthetic may also move, though not to the extent of the remaining eye. The pupil of the prosthetic does not move, so it may sometimes look unequal to the other eye. However, this is usually not noticeable to others.

A number of surgical advances have occurred over the past few decades, including microsurgical techniques. As much as possible, surgeons always attempt to save the injured eye rather than remove it, and saving any remaining vision is always a top priority. Severely injured eyes with no useful vision are the only ones considered for removal. If an eye has been injured, it is vital to obtain prompt medical care to evaluate the extent of the injury.