I'm not crazy, I'm just a little unwell
Just a quick edit; judging by some of the out-of-band reactions to this, I caused rather more concern than was intended! It's not all that bad, to be honest; the various minor side-effects are, as ficlogic points out, of the "one bloke in the test group had the trots so we'd better put that in" variety. So I'll be fine, I'm sure, but felt the need to have a bit of a grumble. Apologies for any consternation caused.
Hey look, an update! I haven't posted one of these in a while -- well, a rant about Visual Studio about two months back, but I hid that one soon after since it made no sense. There's no real reason behind my lack of posts, apart from just forgetting to post until the time has passed.
One of the things that I meant to post about and didn't dates from early August. I took a trip up to Edinburgh, to try and exercise a camera or two and see the sights. It was an interesting weekend -- got to have a look around and caught the start of the Fringe, even if it did rain continuously. However, as I drove up on the Saturday morning, I became aware that my left eye was a bit unhappy; it kept trying to close, and was stinging a bit. It got a bit better over the course of the weekend, but as soon as I arrived home I rang the eye hospital and arranged to get it looked at ASAP.
Turns out the corneal graft I had early last year had suddenly decided to start rejecting; it wasn't anywhere near as bothersome as the three rejections I'd had in the right eye years ago, so I'd hoped that wasn't it. Turns out that after eighteen months the eye had got fed up of the stitches irritating it, and had started to grow a blood vessel out toward the cornea in an attempt to dissolve them. This disturbed the graft enough to trigger a rejection. Ironically, my consultant had been considering taking the stitches out several months previously, but since the graft had been utterly trouble-free up until this point it had been decided to leave well enough alone for a few months longer.
Of course, since I'd been through several episodes of graft rejection before I knew the drill, and also knew that it didn't necessarily lead to a graft failure. An intensive course of steroids is the routine, along with antibiotics at first to make sure it doesn't get infected. Luckily I was sent home on a gradually-tapering course of steroids, rather than admitted for a week like before! By mid-September I was taken down to three drops a day, with an appointment to review the dosage a month later...
... and then with 24 hours' notice, the hospital cancelled that appointment due to staff illness, and promised to rebook and let me know in a few days. Ten days later I gave up waiting and gave them a call:
Ah, yes, you have an appointment booked for January 11th
Uhm, I think you'll find that's for a different department; I really need one sooner to review this course of drugs, as I'm told staying on them too long can cause problems.
So, 8.30 this morning saw me at the hospital for the six-week-overdue checkup. The good news is that the graft is looking absolutely fine, and so the stitches will come out once I've been weaned off the steroids completely. The bad news is that the prolonged course of steroids has caused the pressure in the eye to rise a few mm-Hg above the level they consider safe, and since stopping the steroids abruptly isn't an option I need to take another set of drops alongside them to try and reduce that lest the graft is disturbed again. This seemed reasonable enough -- and then the doctor explained why he was asking questions about my general circulatory and respiratory health.
This second drug is, I'm warned, known to cause asthma in people with a susceptibility to developing it -- and there is a correlation between keratoconus and instances of both asthma and eczema. Not to mention the other possible side-effects listed in the information leaflet; the highlights include diarrhea, vomiting, hives, palpitations, excessive sweating, "curvature of the penis" and a loss of sex drive. The latter is perhaps understandable, given the preceding list!
Wish me luck.
Hey look, an update! I haven't posted one of these in a while -- well, a rant about Visual Studio about two months back, but I hid that one soon after since it made no sense. There's no real reason behind my lack of posts, apart from just forgetting to post until the time has passed.
One of the things that I meant to post about and didn't dates from early August. I took a trip up to Edinburgh, to try and exercise a camera or two and see the sights. It was an interesting weekend -- got to have a look around and caught the start of the Fringe, even if it did rain continuously. However, as I drove up on the Saturday morning, I became aware that my left eye was a bit unhappy; it kept trying to close, and was stinging a bit. It got a bit better over the course of the weekend, but as soon as I arrived home I rang the eye hospital and arranged to get it looked at ASAP.
Turns out the corneal graft I had early last year had suddenly decided to start rejecting; it wasn't anywhere near as bothersome as the three rejections I'd had in the right eye years ago, so I'd hoped that wasn't it. Turns out that after eighteen months the eye had got fed up of the stitches irritating it, and had started to grow a blood vessel out toward the cornea in an attempt to dissolve them. This disturbed the graft enough to trigger a rejection. Ironically, my consultant had been considering taking the stitches out several months previously, but since the graft had been utterly trouble-free up until this point it had been decided to leave well enough alone for a few months longer.
Of course, since I'd been through several episodes of graft rejection before I knew the drill, and also knew that it didn't necessarily lead to a graft failure. An intensive course of steroids is the routine, along with antibiotics at first to make sure it doesn't get infected. Luckily I was sent home on a gradually-tapering course of steroids, rather than admitted for a week like before! By mid-September I was taken down to three drops a day, with an appointment to review the dosage a month later...
... and then with 24 hours' notice, the hospital cancelled that appointment due to staff illness, and promised to rebook and let me know in a few days. Ten days later I gave up waiting and gave them a call:
Ah, yes, you have an appointment booked for January 11th
Uhm, I think you'll find that's for a different department; I really need one sooner to review this course of drugs, as I'm told staying on them too long can cause problems.
So, 8.30 this morning saw me at the hospital for the six-week-overdue checkup. The good news is that the graft is looking absolutely fine, and so the stitches will come out once I've been weaned off the steroids completely. The bad news is that the prolonged course of steroids has caused the pressure in the eye to rise a few mm-Hg above the level they consider safe, and since stopping the steroids abruptly isn't an option I need to take another set of drops alongside them to try and reduce that lest the graft is disturbed again. This seemed reasonable enough -- and then the doctor explained why he was asking questions about my general circulatory and respiratory health.
This second drug is, I'm warned, known to cause asthma in people with a susceptibility to developing it -- and there is a correlation between keratoconus and instances of both asthma and eczema. Not to mention the other possible side-effects listed in the information leaflet; the highlights include diarrhea, vomiting, hives, palpitations, excessive sweating, "curvature of the penis" and a loss of sex drive. The latter is perhaps understandable, given the preceding list!
Wish me luck.