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Comment by notJim | Hacker News Reader

No offense to you, but this attitude is exactly the problem here. I know it's not rational to be very concerned about this, but I also know that the entire duration of that procedure, I will be thinking "KNIFE. IN. EYE." In the world I normally inhabit, knives should not ever be in eyes, so this is an incredibly stressful thought, stressful enough that I might do something crazy like MOVE WHILE A KNIFE IS IN MY EYE. This thought is even more stressful.

The best advice for me personally is probably to breath deeply and try to relax.

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Well, by looking at all the answers, I obviously missed my point. Sorry for that :-) (I'm not a native english speaker as you noticed so it may also explain the misunderstanding ?)

Of course this is not how I talk to my patients... I usually explain the cataract surgery procedure as follows : "the only thing you will feel is water on the side of your face, and the only thing you will see is a very powerful light. You won't see anything scary and you won't feel any pain. We will talk during the surgery and when it will be over, you will tell me that you shouldn't have been afraid". And that's how it goes.

The eye injection procedure is even faster and painless.

Sorry for the gruesome details I gave.

Also, yes, don't look any Youtube videos, because your experience will be totally different than watching the procedure. Youtube videos are scary.

I am Deaf. How would you proceed if you need to do eye surgery on a Deaf person. I think they need to be knocked out. First, they care about their eyes more than other people and second you can't communicate with them during the surgery.

My own experience. I had to do an examination of my nose and throat with a camera on a stick (don't know the exact terminology). The doctor wanted to tell me something and I couldn't react because I couldn't turn the head to lipread and finally I tried to tear out the stick out of my nose and I struggled with the doctor and got a heavy slap on my hand.

This. I have an extremely strong blink reflex which I cannot overcome. The one time they tried to put contact lenses in my eye it took them 15 minutes to get them in and another half an hour to get them back out. It was one of the most stressful experiences I have ever had. It was over 30 years ago and it still makes me shudder to think about it. There is no way that I can possibly rational-ize my way out of that stress and convince myself that injections or surgery would not be ten times worse.

Blink reflex doesn’t really matter. If it’s anything like my Lasik surgery, they insert devices (like Clockwork orange) to make it impossible to blink — who wouldn’t have the urge to blink when something is approaching their eye? It’s an involuntary reflex for self preservation. They also put a ring in my eye that made it impossible for me to move my eye whatsoever regardless of my urge to look away.

Yeah, I get that. The issue is not that it wouldn't work, the issue is that I think it would be more traumatic for me then a normal person, and I base that assessment on the fact that putting contacts in is more traumatic for me than a normal person (like "extremely traumatic" vs "something so non-traumatic that they voluntarily do it to themselves on a regular basis").

I wore contact lenses for 10 years, before getting lasik.

The first time, it took 30 minutes to get them in.

For the first few months, I really struggled. Eventually it got easier, and in a short time I could put them in first time, every time

We're taught from a young age to not put things in our eyes, and it does take time to overcome that. The thought of it might be extremely traumatic now, but if you did it every day, you'd find that disappearing quickly.

Thanks, but I've been wearing glasses for 45 years now. I've made my peace with the fact that the contacts thing ain't gonna happen for me.

> We're taught from a young age to not put things in our eyes, and it does take time to overcome that.

I don't think we're really "taught" this, but is jut part of our innate programming. I never taught my cat anything, and I'm fairly sure if I were to put anything in her eye she would be less than happy about that, even if it doesn't hurt her.

I certainly never recall my mother telling me off for putting things in my eyes.

Anything can be dissected (pun intended) to the point of disgust.

Milk? That’s just cow blood that goes through one weird sweat gland. Honey? That’s bee vomit.

Thanks. I hate you.

Do you enjoy eggs? :)

Sometimes they also give you something for anxiety, like valium.

To be fair the topical anesthetic is cocaine.

I like their attitude, gives me more confidence that they know what they are doing since they can explain it.

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