Pain with eye movement. Is it related to the eye muscle ?

[taurus1203]

I had a RD surgery 7 months ago. I still experience eye pain/discomfort when moving the eye to the right or left (e.g check blind spot when driving or looking at people play tennis). The longer I hold the position (let say longer 10 seconds),  I feel more pain.
My surgeon told me that my eye ball can move to any angle and this implies that the eye muscle should be fine. He told me that the surgery will not touch the eye muscle.

He guess I feel discomfort because my eye is tired or I am tensed.
Is there anyway check if the eye muscle is hurt or have inflammation ? If yes, what can be the treatment ?

[JodieJ]

The retinal problem I described is different from the problem which Dr. Hagan suggested (above).  At this point, we don't know what's causing your symptoms.

Corrective lenses (a contact lens and glasses) worked for me, but I had an obvious image size difference between my eyes.  Prism is not effective for correcting retinally-induced distortion.  According to the literature, blurring the vision in the affected eye can be helpful to some people with retinal problems, but it didn't work for me.  I hope that your OD can help you.

[taurus1203]

I have an appointment with a neuro-ophthalmologist in 2 months. I would like to look at the solution from lens before I see the neuro-ophthalmologist.
I am going to make a appointment with a special OD in my city. He is specialize in doing lens to correct different size. But I don't see anything about phoria from his webpage.
I just found quite a few web page mentioning lens with prism power can also correct phoria. But it seems the lens require a lot of effort to customerize.

[JodieJ]

After (threatened) retinal detachment and the surgery to repair it, the retina is not exactly the same as it once was.  This can cause distortion of the image in the affected eye, so that the images in each eye don't match exactly in size/shape.  Fusing the two images can strain the eye muscles.  A mild phoria can become a major problem under these circumstances.  I don't know whether any of this is contributing to your symptoms (extreme light sensitivity, pain), but there is usually not an easy solution for problems like these.  Eye muscle surgery would not be helpful.  Perhaps a neuro-ophthalmologist could offer some options.  

[taurus1203]

Dr Hagan
Recently an eye doctor found that my eyes have a little bit phoria. I guess this may be due to the surgery. He told me that my phoria is not very serious and my brain can false the eyes to work together to focus. But he also agrees that this may cause my eye muscle be strained much easier.
I think what you described may be the root cause of I always feel the muscle very tired or even fatigue after reading for 10 minutes. Other than surgery and waiting, will there be any special lens to correct the phoria.
How much risk is the muscle surgery ?

[John C Hagan III, MD, FACS, FAAO]

RD surgery is hard on the eye muscles. They are "slung" meaning that a suture is put under them and used to pull the eye in different directions, then a 360 degree band is put under the mucles which also changes them. So pain, double vision is very common. Often it gets better and goes away. Some time eye muscle surgery is done but rarely before 6 months.

JCH MD