I hate everything about this place and would rather go blind than to repeat my experience here…read more
One morning, a dark curtain covered the top of my left eye, and I presented myself to UCSD urgent care. It was a Sunday, so the urgent care nurse told me I needed to go to the ER to be seen by a specialist. At the ER, I waited 10 hours to be seen by an ophthalmologist, who diagnosed me with a retinal detachment and told me I needed to go to Shiley the following morning at 7 am.
Despite showing up at 7 am, it took them over 3 hours to see me. The first doctor told me I needed immediate surgery and referred me to a second doctor, who explained they would put a buckle around my eye and the surgery was expected to take an hour or two. Because it was an emergency surgery, I had to get it done at the main hospital two buildings away.
After surgery, I woke up with a lot of pain in my eye and was told there were some complications. The surgery ended up taking over 5 hours. In my follow-up, I was told that while draining the fluid underneath the detachment, the retina became stuck and "retinal incarceration," a rare event, occurred. As a result, they had to perform a vitrectomy, which required cutting into my eye and filling it with silicone oil. I also now had a cataract growing in my eye and was told I would need cataract surgery within the year.
To add insult to injury, I was charged facilities fees by the minute. The surgery and ER fees the day before resulted in about $10k in out-of-pocket costs with insurance. No wonder the recovery nurse was rushing me to leave after surgery. Funny enough, I was even given a parking ticket for admitting myself to the ER. Thanks UCSD. Since then, the finance department has also been extremely unhelpful in working with me to lower costs, but they don't seem to mind charging me for every follow-up I needed, of which there were many because I needed weekly injections of medication into my eye to prevent scarring.
Fast forward a few months and I needed to get the silicone oil extracted from my eye, which the doctor recommended I do before cataract surgery because the oil could cause vision changes. By this point, there were so many bubbles in my eye that it looked like I was staring at a fly eye, but with a lot of blur and so much light diffraction that it gave me a constant headache. I was assured that the oil and bubbles would be removed during surgery.
Despite the silicone oil extraction being a "great success," there are still enough bubbles in my eye that make me feel like I'm living underwater. The doctor claims he got all the oil out and that no bubbles can be seen in imaging, but that a fourth surgery can be made to remove the remaining bubbles if needed. Great - I thought getting the oil out was the entire purpose of this surgery.
I am now in Shiley for the 4th time in a week and Nth time in the last few months. Every visit, I'm here for a minimum of two hours, most of which is waiting in an ophthalmic exam chair that has the ergonomics of an economy class plane seat. Now I am being advised to not get cataract surgery because the cataract is small and there are risks associated with surgery. Funny how those risks were downplayed when I could be used as a guinea pig for training medical residents.
Imagine being told you should feel blessed paying thousands for blurry vision and seeing distracting bubbles float constantly across your vision permanently. What arrogance for these doctors to deliver a result and then tell you that it is an acceptable one regardless of your own feelings. No one seems to want to take responsibility, and all I get are a circle of excuses for why I should be satisfied. Had I known these were the standards doctors had to live by, I would have become a doctor too.
At this point, I would have been okay with just losing the eye. If you have to come to Shiley, do yourself a favor and just choose to go blind. They are a research facility and not serious professional practicing physicians who care for their patients.