Pterygium Surgery in skilled and experienced hands is a fairly simple procedure. Our surgery is usually done in our licensed, certified surgery center. Our patients are awake for the procedure but can be asleep or be sedated. There is no injection given behind the eye, therefore there is no risk of bleeding behind eye or damage to the eye with a retrobulbar needle as may be the case with other surgeons. The patient is asked to look different directions during the pterygium surgery. The procedure has several steps.
- The patient reclines on the operating room table
- The eye is cleaned and a drop of anesthetic is instilled
- A spring is placed to hold the eye open
- A marking pen is used to outline the extent of the growth
- The are is numbed with an injection
- The abnormal tissue is removed
- A graft is prepared and
- The graft is glued in position
- A patch is applied
The procedure generally takes less than 20 minutes. The patient keeps the patch in place for 24 hours and starts drops one day after surgery and continues these drops for several weeks to minimize the chance of the growth returning.