3. Cataract Surgery Daily Eyedrop Manager¶
Related Link:
“【こんなのいかがです？】白内障手術後の点眼ルーティンを確実にするケース”, note
“【こんなのいかがです？】点眼薬のサイズによって大きさを変更できるケース”, note
Background¶
In late August 2024, I took a cataract surgery on my right eye. Cataract had worsened for the last few years and I used to see things with the left eye only. After the surgery, I can look at things with both eyes and now I don’t have to have two types of eye-glasses always ready. After the adjustment of one glasses, I can do everything, from driving a car to working with PCs.
One big issue was that the eye doctor wrote a prescription for three different eye-drop medicines after the surgery. In Japan, the patients have to drop three eye-drop medicines for three months after surgery. To make the matter worse, while two of them should be dropped four times a day, the other one could be dropped just two times a day. It is difficult to drop them in the right frequency. Because the majority of the cataract patients are elderly, the proper management of the eye-drop medicines is extremely difficult.
Design¶
Therefore, I decided to design a cataract surgery daily eyedrop manager and 3D-print it. First, I took the measurement of the width, depth and height of each of the medicine bottles. Based on the measurement, I started the design with Tinkercad.
(1) First Model¶
First, I just designed the container to hold three bottles. The numbers embossed on the front wall stand for how many times I am supposed to drop it. Since I received a prescription for the pain-remover tablets for three days right after the surgery, I added a back pocket to keep the tablet sheet. This could keep the hypertensive tablet sheets I take.
(2) Second Model¶
First design was made based on the assumption that the users are elderly and spend most of their time at home. The eyedrop manager could be placed on the dining table or the study desk. However, in my own case, I have to take the medicine bottles out in the daytime. Then, the container is a bit too big and the medicine bottles go out of the container in my backpack if there is no cover.
Therefore, I removed the back pocket and added a cover to the original design.
(3) Third Model¶
I used the above second model for the first two weeks after the surgery. However, when I visited my eye doctor for post-surgery monitoring, he said that I should change the third medicine. Although the shape of the new medicine bottle seemed to the the same as the old one, I found that the size was a bit smaller.
Another constraint was that the above two models could work only for the cataract patients who took the surgery at the same hospital. If you go to other doctor, you will find that your subscription might consist of different three medicines. To address these issues, I decided to write a code with Tinkercad Codeblock.
With these codes, we could automatically design the container by just inputing the width, the depth and the height of each bottle. I tried the program for the new set of my medicine bottles and found it worked.
Contact¶
If you are interested in the local replication, please contact me at LinkedIn.