All My Eye - Posturing.
When
I told a friend of mine that I'd been told to "posture" for
5 days, he said "Well that'll be easy for you, you've been doing
it all your life". Actually it turned out to be not so easy,
and I have nothing but admiration for those people who have to do it for
several weeks.
The operation is only part of the treatment. Once the tear has been
repaired, the retina has to be helped to reattach itself to the choroid,
the "sub-strate" at the back of the eye. I was told that this
was achieved by introducing a gas bubble into the eye, and positioning
the eye in such a way that the bubble would "press against the tear".
I think this is a simplification, as it was clear to me that actually
my eye was more than half full of gas, but whatever the mechanism involved,
the repair has to be kept in the gas.
This means that those with damage at the top of the eye must keep their heads upright, whereas those like me with the damage in the lower or rear part of the eye, must keep their faces down.
I found pillows not very useful for resting completely face down. Suffocation seemed the most likely outcome. A bit of experiment revealed that a rolled towel was a great help, as it could be accurately adjusted for height, and could support the forhead while keeping the tender eye and useful nose "off the deck".
