Paracentesis again

Sheesh, I've had another injection straight into my left eye again (called paracentesis) so I'm all sore and re-eyed at the moment.  The process involves dilation of the eye, then application of a lot of lignocaine drops.  The next step is for a disposable plastic sterile adhesive fenestrated drape to be stuck over the eye, and along comes the ophthalmologist with the syringe of avastin.

It's weird getting injected, as you can see the syringe actually going in, and when the liquid is injected, you can actually see it wash over the front of the eye.  A bit like a wave hitting a porthole and looking out.  At this point it hurts so much the assistant says "All Done" and you instinctively shut the eye anyway.  An eyepad is stuck on with micropore and then you get up and fork over $750 for the privelege, of which Medicare will generously refund about $280.

What generally happens then is after about four or five days the vision in my eye improves noticeably, but after about 3 weeks it's back to how it was before (worse luck).  We have been trying, I must say, to get vision back, but I'm not real sure it's working.

What happens later is you get an OCT (occular coherent tomography) which is a special computer-enhanced photo of the rear of the eye (for which you pay $100 and Medicare doesn't give you back a cent) and this is used to check the state of the retina.  My last one I had about two weeks after the avastin injection.  This one showed a massive improvement, and yes, at the time, I was seeing a lot better from the eye.  However after another couple of weeks the vision got noticeably worse.

This time we're going to wait two months before doing the OCT, so we can check what happens after a fair bit of time has elapsed.  I think it may perhaps be time to give up on these treatments, as they're very expensive and don't seem to be doing all that much for my vision.