Pain following or caused by reaction to eye-numbing anesthesia

[Shar609]

Several years ago, I had LASIK surgery and had severe pain that evening - lasting but decreasing into the next two days. The drug used to numb my eyes was Proparacaine.  Three days ago, I had Fractional CO2 laser treatment on my eye area. To protect my eyes, Tetracaine was used to numb them and eye shields were inserted. I had the same type of severe pain that evening and the next 2 days, which no amount of eye flushing (by the Dr) nor eye drops had any soothing effect.  Is it possible that one can have an allergic-type reaction to -caine type anesthetics? Is there an alternative, in case I should need future treatments?

[namnam46]

Hi Shar,

I want to welcome you to the Pain Management Forum and let you know that we are glad that you have found this Forum. I need to let you know that there are NO Doctors on this Forum ONLY CP (Chronic Pain) Patients that help each other thru our own experiences with our pain.

I'm so sorry that you have had these reactions with your surgeries. Your question is one that your Doctor needs to answer. There might be alternatives out there for future treatments BUT I've found out that not ALL Doctors use the same treatments. So you need to ASK your Doctor about that.

I would imagine that you could possibly have an allergic reaction to the meds but I wonder if your reaction could be to the laser itself. What did your Dr. say about your reaction?

I hope taht you will keep us updated on what you find out....Sherry

[jamlws]

If you do have furture treatments done I would talk to the dr about what happens when you have the type of anesthetics that they was using. Maybe they have another kind they can try on you so you won't have that kind of reaction to it. Have you asked the dr about what happens after the treatments?
Best of luck to you!
Jamie