Michael Bisping knows more than one should about eye injuries in fighting, and doesn’t want Tom Aspinall to make the same mistakes he did.

Aspinall, who will be undergoing surgery on both eyes after suffering severe eye pokes in his title fight against Ciryl Gane, has spoken about getting on the road to recovery. However, Bisping, who competed in his most significant UFC bouts with one eye, wants Aspinall to take his time.

“It was 10, 11, 12 fights – I don’t know how many fights it was with one eye, but it was definitely a lot,” Bisping said in a YouTube video. “… Because of that, and because I had about five or six eye surgeries, I do know a little about this. Real quick, let’s talk about this: Tom’s gonna need, apparently, eye surgery. It’ll probably just be a minor thing like a realignment of the tendons, but these can go wrong.

“… My retina was reattached after it was detached against Vitor Belfort, and then it re-detached, and then they fixed it again, and then I got glaucoma, because once you start messing around with the eyes, in fact, just like any part of your body, once you start going in and messing around with it, it’s never the same again. It’s never quite as strong, and things can go wrong.”

To make things especially complicated, Aspinall is dealing with procedures in both eyes. Bisping’s right eye was his problematic side, which stemmed from his fight against Belfort in January 2013. Bisping returned to action that April. In total, he made 11 more appearances, which included his middleweight title reign.

However, Bisping wishes he had taken more time to focus on healing, because now, he can’t see out of his right eye. He urges Aspinall to be patient in his recovery, because he’s risking permanent damage.

“The one thing you can’t do with an eye is rush back,” Bisping said. “That is the one big lesson that I learned, because I did that. I rushed back too soon. I rushed back to sparring. I rushed back to competition, and I never saw out of that eye again. Tom has got to take his time.”

This article originally appeared on MMA Junkie: Michael Bisping offers Tom Aspinall advice on eye surgery recovery