Closure
Well, I'm back from my third and most likely last medical trip to LA with good news: I do NOT have glaucoma (although I am a candidate to develop it at some point), and the visual field defects in my right eye which have been troubling me for years are NOT sight-threatening. Whew!
A week ago today, I saw this brilliant eye doctor at Cedars-Sinai, and he explained what's wrong with me with truly amazing clarity and thoroughness. Turns out what I have is not actually an eye problem specifically but a defect in the way that my body delivers blood to tiny blood vessels in general, and it's related to other problems I've had for decades, like migraine, low blood pressure, cold extremities, insomnia, tinnitus, and a new thing I've noticed lately, an absence of thirst.
It's called "vasospastic syndrome" or "Flammer syndrome." Funny to have had a condition my whole life that didn't even have a name until recently! Anyway, it's not life-threatening and shouldn't affect my longevity, so I'm relatively unconcerned, it's just something I need to be aware of. I mean, I've lived with most of these problems all these years, and they've just been minor annoyances, never anything major, and now I know even the relatively new manifestations in my eyes aren't serious, either.
Finally, eternal thanks to Richard and Yona Rudolph who made it possible for me to see these specialists in the LA area and finally get closure for all my eye problems. There's no way in the world I would ever have gotten the kind of medical care here that I was able to there without the Rudolphs' help.
A week ago today, I saw this brilliant eye doctor at Cedars-Sinai, and he explained what's wrong with me with truly amazing clarity and thoroughness. Turns out what I have is not actually an eye problem specifically but a defect in the way that my body delivers blood to tiny blood vessels in general, and it's related to other problems I've had for decades, like migraine, low blood pressure, cold extremities, insomnia, tinnitus, and a new thing I've noticed lately, an absence of thirst.
It's called "vasospastic syndrome" or "Flammer syndrome." Funny to have had a condition my whole life that didn't even have a name until recently! Anyway, it's not life-threatening and shouldn't affect my longevity, so I'm relatively unconcerned, it's just something I need to be aware of. I mean, I've lived with most of these problems all these years, and they've just been minor annoyances, never anything major, and now I know even the relatively new manifestations in my eyes aren't serious, either.
Finally, eternal thanks to Richard and Yona Rudolph who made it possible for me to see these specialists in the LA area and finally get closure for all my eye problems. There's no way in the world I would ever have gotten the kind of medical care here that I was able to there without the Rudolphs' help.