Besides a brief mention in a deleted scene from Total Divas, Natalya Neidhart has rarely spoken about her very private battle.
Speaking with Sports Illustrated‘s The Takedown, Natalya revealed she has been blind in one eye since birth.
“I don’t think even really anybody in WWE knew about it because I kept it pretty secretive. I was born with astigmatism… I was legally blind in my left eye,” she told the outlet.
Over the years vision in that eye has steadily diminished and despite seeking assistance and advice from all manner of medical experts nothing could be done. Natalya even tried a contact lens but that ended up with her seeing double so she has wrestled with one eye for years.
“They didn’t have the technology to fix it. (I) Didn’t qualify for LASIK because of how my eye was shaped. At that time, the procedure that they had for (a) lens implant, because of the shape of my eye, I didn’t qualify for it,” she said.
This year though she found help at Newsom Eye who performed EVO ICL implant surgery on her while she was waiting to resign with WWE. It was technology and a procedure that wasn’t available before. She now has perfect vision.
“They even strengthened my right eye. I had surgery in my right eye to get (it) even stronger so that my right eye (and) my left eye are totally in sync with each other,” said a grateful Neidhart.
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