The eye of a needle? Nope, needling the eye! And a very old ST page...

I can now say that I've been needled by my eye doctor. Or maybe I should say he "got on" my nerves... my optic nerves. It was supposed to be just a routine checkup but the pressure in my left eye was found to have gone up. That's bad for anyone who has had surgery for glaucoma. Scarring had narrowed the channels that allow fluid to flow out of the eye area.  

"I need to needle you -- to reopen the channels," he announced. It was all done in about five minutes following dilation (very small holes were made in the eye and a big hole was made in my pocket; but I'll pay a skilled eye surgeon anytime for something as delicate as this). I have to see him again in three weeks, to assess the outcome.

    
Of course, I've been Googling. The procedure is called bleb needling and "Needling -- 5FU" stands for "5-fluorouracil bleb needling".

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19225352

Success is not guaranteed. I'm hoping I am in the 29.7% of patients whose outcome was an "absolute" success or at least in the 35.1% who were in the "qualified" success category (see link above). I also found this link below with a rather provocative heading:

Bleb Needling Increasingly Common, But Is It Safe?

http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/760145

There's also a three-minute YouTube video showing one such procedure in progress but I don't think I want to put it up. It might be too squirmy for some.

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My father-in-law found an old ST page and passed it to me. How old? Monday, May 24, 1937!...

I thought the ads were fascinating too. Imagine the prices of Rolex Oyster watches (albeit in 1937 prices)!

Horlicks... still going strong today as a yummy "enervation banishing" drink:

And look at the four-digit telephone number for this Cold Storage ad...

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Since I started off today on eye matters, I'll wrap up on the subject too:

22 Fascinating Facts About Your Eye!

Vision is the most important sense we have. And so, our eyes are the most important sensory organs in our body. A huge part of the brain is dedicated to vision - receiving stimuli, processing it and relaying the information. The human body is built to defend the eyes and we have dozens of reflexes that help us protect them in case of emergency, which is why most of us get to keep them. But how much do you know about your eyes? Let's test your knowledge right now with these fascinating facts!