The way OP is describing his condition, like his history, is a mess. It doesnt look like an accurate account. How could a clot cause a cataract? My guess is, OP had a congenital cataract. He was examined, and due to the very opaque lens, the doctors were not able to examine the retina. They probably performed an ultrasound and found that the retina was attached, so that they could perform the surgery. Only post op did they find that the eye had actually more issues than first observable, with some kind of vein or artery occlusion. The other scenario is they saw some kind of suspicious swelling on ultrasound in the retina, which may have been caused by some kind of vessel occlusion, and decided to operate in order to gain insight in the eye and be able to perform accurate diagnosis and see what they could do in terms of treatment. From the photos, it seems like OP underwent a complicated extracapsular cataract extraction through a temporal incision that was complicated with an Iris injury, leaving him with an Iris defect. Or the Iris defect is congenital, in which case it's called a coloboma. As far as visual potential is concerned, very difficult to say anything without seeing the status of the retina. In any case OP probably has a deep amblyopia to start with. At least he doesn't have aesthetically annoying exotropia in the affected eye.

No problem, glad I could help. If you want to improve on your condition, there's probably a few things you should figure out, which an ophthalmologist should be able to tell you after examining you: 1) Do you have amblyopia? If yes, to which degree? What amblyopia means, is that the connection between your eye and brain is incomplete, due to your eye basically being dysfunctional in early childhood, meaning your brain didn't invest the energy building a strong connection with your eye. This is important in figuring out if you want to do something about your eye. If you have deep amblyopia in that eye, and are not aesthetically bothered by the appearance, it's probably best to leave it alone. 2) you will need your retina to be properly evaluated. Again, i can't say anything just by looking at your picture. Many congenital cataracts also have associated conditions with them, you may have some kind of glaucoma, you may have some kind of retina pathology. This should be evaluated because it plays a major role on the prognosis, should a procedure be untertaken. 3) If you do not have a deep amblyopia, and the retina, optic nerve and other important structures look more or less ok, so that some kind of functional improvement could be expected from a procedure, the next step would be to figure out what to do. 4) It looks like your aphakic, which means you do not have a lens. This means any image coming onto your retina is unfocused, and you want to correct that if the eye still has some potential. This would mean figuring out what kind of lens you'd need. They have some great intraocular lenses available nowadays. Your best bet is probably a monofocal lens, which means it focuses images at only a particular distance, say for far away (more than a few meters) objects, in which case you will need some correction to see near objects like the prints and images on a book (this is only relevant if you have a decent visual acuity potential out of the eye). All the other fancy lenses, like multifocal lenses and stuff, are probably a bad idea, because their physical attributes mean they have to split the light and cause a loss of contrast, which wouldn't be a good thing, especially if the signal sent to your brain is dampened through retina pathology or amblyopia. A toric lens, which could correct astigmatism in your cornea could be meaningful if you have a significant degree of astigmatism, say starting 2 Diopters. Monofocal toric lenses are available. 4) The choice of the lens will be dictated to some degree by the anatomy of your eye. When you implant an intraocular lens, it needs to be fixated somewhere. If you have some kind of remnant of the capsule of your lens, it could be used as an anchor point. This can be figured out by your ophthalmologist. From the picture, it doesn't look like your iris can be a good anchor point, as too much of it is missing. Another option is a sclera fixated intraocular lens, but these require relatively technically difficult surgery that is best left to someone with extensive experience with these kind of lenses. 5) As far as your iris is concerned, even with an appropriate lens, it's possible you won't achieve the best results if your pupil remains this big. This creates a lot of artifacts, like halos and light sensitivity. You may need some kind of artificial diaphragm to filter in the amount of light hitting your retina.

These are just a few tips, if you DO want to try and do something about it. Even after examination, it may be so that no significant gain is to be expected, in which case i would leave the eye in peace if i were you. Even if some vision improvement is to be expected after surgery, i would still keep in mind that every surgery carries some kind of risk, from infection to retinal detachment, intraocular pressure increase/glaucoma, or bleeding. All these factors need to be weighted in before you make a decision.

Hope this helped a bit breaking down the conditions, and what to ask next time you see an ophthalmologist. Cheers!

I'm not really familiar with his work, but it might be a deficit on my part, or it may have been some older work that has been superceded and is only important from a historical point of view. In any case, after a quick googling, there seems to be several Rosenbaums doing some decent work in ophthalmology. As far as records are concerned, I'm practicing in Germany, so i can't really tell what the policies are at your location. Here, institutions are required to keep the record for 10 years, after which it no longer needs to be archived and can be destroyed. However, I do not think you really need the old records to make an accurate assessment on the status of your eye now. I really feel like you shouldn't be embarrassed by your eye. It's something you were born with, and had no power to change. It's not your fault, and there's nothing to be embarrassed about a medicla condition. It probably to some degree played a role in shaping who you are today, and that's something you should be proud of. The eye is impaired functionally, but it doesn't look ugly aesthetically, and it certainly gives character and a story to tell. If anything, that half-moon iris looks kind of cool. What is often overlooked by ophthalmologists however, is that it should be mentioned that you need to take care of your one good eye: wear protective eye wear anytime you do anything that would put your good eye at some kind of risk of injury; sports, hobbies, hazardous jobs, even house cleaning! That would be my advice :) Good luck!

Thx for the info. Well it does look like you have glaucoma, although more tests may be necessary. Glaucoma is defined as any two of the following 3 criteria: 1) ocular hypertension, 2) optic nerve damage, 3) visual field defect. It looks like you definitively have criterium #1: Normal eye pressure is between 10 and 21 mmHg. 21 is the upper limit, may even be too much for your eye, depending on the level of damage that has already occured on your optic nerve from the chronically elevated eye pressure. Latanoprost is a good drug, and they can complete it with other drugs if they find this one agent doesnt do the trick in bringin the eye pressure to a level they find acceptable.

2 and #3 need to be assessed by your ophthalmologist. #3 may be difficult to assess, if the visual acuity in your eye is too low.

In any case, what I mentioned before in terms of lens surgery, it only applies in a select number of cases really, where potential gains are to be expected. Like I said before, make sure it would be worth it to undergo some kind of procedure, before you embark on anything. Your ophthalmologist may tell you him/herself it's not worth it, although sometimes it may be difficult to really make an accurate assessment, when many factors come into play.

Do you have any kind of report that says anything about the status of your retina, specifically if it's attached and the status of your macula/fovea?

If you have some kind of binocular (meaning it's there when you have both eyes open) double vision, it points toward a misalignment of your extraocular muscles. This can be corrected surgically, and may decrease the symptoms you experience. You'd need a complete assessment from an orthoptist though, to figure out what degrees of deviations you have and if surgery would be meaningful.