It's hard to summarize those two threads without tiring myself out.
Let's say I have troubled eyes, and that my life long eye disease (RP) is oddly enough not progressing badly at all, is not expected to get worse, and none of the docs are worried about it.... but it has set the stage, as it were, with flimsy lens-holding, for recent troubles.
Sorry, I can't bear to recap, just want to report the latest.
After eye surgery 3, which was to fix the Cat Eye (when certain of the medications were stopped and the pupil dilation was allowed to shut down and the iris didn't land right... I had gotten a real life, as opposed to cosmetic lens, cat eye, not so funny as it lets in a lot of glare and messes up focus) - anyway, after that, I have been on a wild regimen of eye drops.
Some drops make you larger, some make you small.
Well, really, one very expensive and powerful one lowers eye pressure and causes inflammation in my eye, yet another story, and the other, a steroid, fixes the inflammation but increases fluid pressure in the eye. A perfect circle.
We (doc and I) had weaned me from the steroid ever so gradually, since that is not great long term, and I was doing fine.
until
until
about ten days ago, when I noticed, reading in bed, that my focus was weird with Lefty.
Backing up, since my new lens is immediately back of the iris, there is no flexibility in the vision. I see at something like 6 3/4" from the page in focus and not at 7" or 6 1/2, it has been very particular. With the right eye I see fine at about twelve inches, with a fare range either way, since that eye is more or less normal for now.... so I use that one. But since I am paranoid, I check out lefty and ten days ago, damn, I saw blank spots in the letters in words.
Now I am no dummy and I know blank spots are not good. A sign, for example of macular degeneration, which let me tell you is the last thing I need, since that is mid eye and I am already missing a lot of the outer vision with the RP. But I thought macular degeneration was slow.
My first reaction, after all these months of being a good girl and the best patient ever was to ignore it, wait til morning. It was still true in the morning, gulp, but then I waited til after work, and it was the same, and so on.
Slowly I got to the idea that I would never see as well again as I did back a few months ago.
I called the dr's office but she was off for the weekend, and I wrote down the emergency number for calling if any change of vision, but didn't call it as it didn't get worse (woman newly in denial, after all these months). Still it was holding steady, as it did 'til I went in yesterday, and Louise, the doc, said, WHAT? As is her way, she is very loud. She has no bedside manner, I love her.
Ok, her best guess is that it is Cystoid Macular Edema. This is not swell, but better than what I was thinking. Yes, I have to go down to Santa Rosa to see the retina specialist, that'll be Tuesday, and he will run all these special tests (I looked them up, involve fluorescein dye) and perhaps treat with a shot of cortisone next to the eye. As horrible as that sounds, I've already had one, in one of the surgeries, doesn't hurt if you have the right anaesthetic, so of course I am wondering about that. But I am sure they don't want you to jerk about with a needle in the eye area so I am not frantic about that yet.
Skipping on past the horrible, my vision is better today. Less islands of blank. Which my pessimistic self didn't expect, that it would get better.
So, what to learn from this - if you or a loved one is ever looking out at a page of letters with some small blanks in them, yes, it is a sign of something in the macular vision. Maybe or maybe not degeneration, it might be as we think is happening with me, edema, or post operation swelling. Or as Louise intimated, post-f*cked with eyes.
Here's a link -
Cystoid Macular Edema
Just ask Diane.
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