I never thought this usericon would be prophetic...
I'm still there, currently signed off work with unspecified "visual disturbances" in my left eye (unexplained monocular diplopia, or in layman's terms a peculiar "ghosting" effect to the left of everything) and mostly unable to use the computer for more than 10 minutes at a time without using an eyepatch. I haven't been able to wear my glasses without migraine-type headaches since the middle of March, possibly because by now the left lens feels like it belongs to someone else.
I have seen (blurrily) two opticians, two opthalmologists and three neurologists and the inside of an MRI machine. I do not have pituitary adenoma, multiple sclerosis, lesions or imbalances in the brain visible by routine magnetic resonance imaging, or evidence of ischaemic events. I do not have anything visibly wrong with my eye. The first neurologist (seen privately to get an MRI sooner than the 3-4 months it took the last time) suspected a "migrainous condition" and prescribed amitriptyline, which seems to be the drug of first resort for "weird shit we don't understand". The opthalmologist has declared himself "stumped" and the neurologist's registrar clinic had to go fetch his boss. Each category of NHS specialists has suggested it must be something to do with the other category's speciality and now I am waiting to see which neuro-opthalmologist referral gets me an appointment first, for a more detailed MRI, and also for a referral to Moorfields for (you really didn't want to know this) a test involving electrodes on my actual eyeball, for which I will need at the very least sedation, a straitjacket and a head clamp. Meanwhile my final wisdom tooth decided this would be a perfect time to get infected again, but at least this time I got amoxicillin rather than the hateful metronidazole.
Bizarrely, while this has been going on, the prescription for the problem eye has also changed, which may explain why the glasses now seem to belong to someone else. When I went to the optician two days after first noticing the blurriness in the left eye, she said the left eye's prescription (which was -3.00 to the right eye's -2.75) had gone down by 0.25. Odd, I thought. A few days later the ophthalmologist thought it had worsened by 0.25 instead. Bah, I thought. The private ophthalmologist (a rather dishy Middle-Eastern-via-East-Africa type) told me to update the refraction before seeing him again on the NHS if the problem didn't clear up, so a couple of weeks ago I went back to the optician. Left eye was now down to -2.00, so no wonder I was getting bad headaches from my glasses. Meanwhile I also secured an eye patch (surprisingly hard to come by), with which I could use the computer again, but it is so unpleasant to wear that after a couple of days I went back to mostly wandering about in a glassesless blur, which isn't quite as blurry as it used to be. Admittedly my myopia has never been particularly severe, but I have been amazed at how well I can cope without glasses, including travelling to Coventry and Stansted without any real difficulty.
I now have six weeks before the next batch of ever more specialised tests, so I decided to have some new glasses made up as cheaply as possible with what appears to be the new left eye prescription (as best as one can tell through the ghosting) and try to go back to work part time next week, rather than sitting at home listening non-stop to audiobooks and Radio 4, and trying not to freak out when my ill-informed but over-creative medical imagination comes up with squicky diagnoses ranging from mad cow disease to worms in my brain. The local chain opticians have some fantastically nasty frames + lens deals in the £25-50 range, and a few not much better ones in the £75 + free second pair range. If you can find any that don't make you want to wear a paper bag on your head. I know I said "as cheaply as possible" but a girl has her vanity and even the lure of free prescription sunglasses wasn't enough. So today I trooped back to Holborn to see the same independent optician again, on the promise of their "bargain rack" starting at £55 including lenses basic. Well, they only had two frames at that price (the others went from £79 to £199) -- but one of those frames was easily the best pair of specs I'd seen in all six shops I tried, and they'll be ready tomorrow compared to Boots's 5-7 working days and D&A's 7-10 working days.
Of course first I had to have my refraction checked again, by the senior optician this time (the one I'd seen before being booked up). I was expecting the correction to have changed again out of sheer orneriness, but not by another 2.00 wtf!!! The result of a lot of "which is better, number one or number two?" was that the left eye now only needs the correction for astigmatism, and in less than two months my shortsightedness, for which I've needed glasses since the age of 10, has gone. (I'd rather the diplopia had gone, but never mind.) The right eye meanwhile is unchanged. I find this rather difficult to believe, but to be honest I couldn't care less what lenses I get as long as I can wear glasses without living from aspirin to aspirin and get back to a semblance of normality until the next batch of diagnostic tests, so having no prescription for myopia while the eye settles down sounds good to me - it may even help me ignore the ghosting problem.
In between doctors' appointments and my mother's visit (silver lining: I got to spend time with her without using any annual leave ;-)) I have been meaning to send thank you cards to those of you who sent cards and other kindnesses - you know who you are, let this be a placeholder thanks, and of course thanks also to everyone who has sent kind thoughts via LJ comment. Needless to say the LJ backlog has gone well beyond being able to catch up; I'm only regularly hearing what malaheed has found exciting enough to read out from his friends-list, and am not planning to spend any time online beyond the minimum necessary to return to work, though Malaheed checks my email most days. (This update is by way of an experiment - if I get a headache or eyestrain clearly returning to work in a week would be Teh Stupid.)
I have seen (blurrily) two opticians, two opthalmologists and three neurologists and the inside of an MRI machine. I do not have pituitary adenoma, multiple sclerosis, lesions or imbalances in the brain visible by routine magnetic resonance imaging, or evidence of ischaemic events. I do not have anything visibly wrong with my eye. The first neurologist (seen privately to get an MRI sooner than the 3-4 months it took the last time) suspected a "migrainous condition" and prescribed amitriptyline, which seems to be the drug of first resort for "weird shit we don't understand". The opthalmologist has declared himself "stumped" and the neurologist's registrar clinic had to go fetch his boss. Each category of NHS specialists has suggested it must be something to do with the other category's speciality and now I am waiting to see which neuro-opthalmologist referral gets me an appointment first, for a more detailed MRI, and also for a referral to Moorfields for (you really didn't want to know this) a test involving electrodes on my actual eyeball, for which I will need at the very least sedation, a straitjacket and a head clamp. Meanwhile my final wisdom tooth decided this would be a perfect time to get infected again, but at least this time I got amoxicillin rather than the hateful metronidazole.
Bizarrely, while this has been going on, the prescription for the problem eye has also changed, which may explain why the glasses now seem to belong to someone else. When I went to the optician two days after first noticing the blurriness in the left eye, she said the left eye's prescription (which was -3.00 to the right eye's -2.75) had gone down by 0.25. Odd, I thought. A few days later the ophthalmologist thought it had worsened by 0.25 instead. Bah, I thought. The private ophthalmologist (a rather dishy Middle-Eastern-via-East-Africa type) told me to update the refraction before seeing him again on the NHS if the problem didn't clear up, so a couple of weeks ago I went back to the optician. Left eye was now down to -2.00, so no wonder I was getting bad headaches from my glasses. Meanwhile I also secured an eye patch (surprisingly hard to come by), with which I could use the computer again, but it is so unpleasant to wear that after a couple of days I went back to mostly wandering about in a glassesless blur, which isn't quite as blurry as it used to be. Admittedly my myopia has never been particularly severe, but I have been amazed at how well I can cope without glasses, including travelling to Coventry and Stansted without any real difficulty.
I now have six weeks before the next batch of ever more specialised tests, so I decided to have some new glasses made up as cheaply as possible with what appears to be the new left eye prescription (as best as one can tell through the ghosting) and try to go back to work part time next week, rather than sitting at home listening non-stop to audiobooks and Radio 4, and trying not to freak out when my ill-informed but over-creative medical imagination comes up with squicky diagnoses ranging from mad cow disease to worms in my brain. The local chain opticians have some fantastically nasty frames + lens deals in the £25-50 range, and a few not much better ones in the £75 + free second pair range. If you can find any that don't make you want to wear a paper bag on your head. I know I said "as cheaply as possible" but a girl has her vanity and even the lure of free prescription sunglasses wasn't enough. So today I trooped back to Holborn to see the same independent optician again, on the promise of their "bargain rack" starting at £55 including lenses basic. Well, they only had two frames at that price (the others went from £79 to £199) -- but one of those frames was easily the best pair of specs I'd seen in all six shops I tried, and they'll be ready tomorrow compared to Boots's 5-7 working days and D&A's 7-10 working days.
Of course first I had to have my refraction checked again, by the senior optician this time (the one I'd seen before being booked up). I was expecting the correction to have changed again out of sheer orneriness, but not by another 2.00 wtf!!! The result of a lot of "which is better, number one or number two?" was that the left eye now only needs the correction for astigmatism, and in less than two months my shortsightedness, for which I've needed glasses since the age of 10, has gone. (I'd rather the diplopia had gone, but never mind.) The right eye meanwhile is unchanged. I find this rather difficult to believe, but to be honest I couldn't care less what lenses I get as long as I can wear glasses without living from aspirin to aspirin and get back to a semblance of normality until the next batch of diagnostic tests, so having no prescription for myopia while the eye settles down sounds good to me - it may even help me ignore the ghosting problem.
In between doctors' appointments and my mother's visit (silver lining: I got to spend time with her without using any annual leave ;-)) I have been meaning to send thank you cards to those of you who sent cards and other kindnesses - you know who you are, let this be a placeholder thanks, and of course thanks also to everyone who has sent kind thoughts via LJ comment. Needless to say the LJ backlog has gone well beyond being able to catch up; I'm only regularly hearing what malaheed has found exciting enough to read out from his friends-list, and am not planning to spend any time online beyond the minimum necessary to return to work, though Malaheed checks my email most days. (This update is by way of an experiment - if I get a headache or eyestrain clearly returning to work in a week would be Teh Stupid.)