(continued from the
good news/bad news thread)
I haven't got glaucoma after all. I saw the big cheese consultant today and he started examining my eyes from scratch, measured my pressures, looked through all my notes, explained why it looked to his underling a year ago that I had glaucoma
- HRT* showed an abnormal cup-to-disc ratio
- a (not very) dodgy visual fields test
Then he explained why it wasn't glaucoma, showing me the scans of my optic nerve disc and surroundings, and telling me what it all meant
- the HRT shows no change over the years - I just have an abnormal cup-to-disc ratio
- my last visual fields test was fine ( the opthalmologist I saw 2 weeks ago used the phrase "high reliability") - glaucoma would mean I'd get the same results or worse, not better
- my pressures are in the low teens
- "I've seen thousands of eyes, and know what glaucoma looks like. That isn't glaucoma."
He also put a note on my file that if I ever do get glaucoma for real (my father had it, and a predisposition can be inherited), I'm to get laser treatment straight away rather than eyedrops (seeing as how one sort didn't work, and the other sort made my eyes red and oozy).
So it's now back to an annual checkup, no more faff with prescriptions and pharmacies, no more having to remember to take my drops, no more strategies to make sure I don't give myself a double dose and no more stopping in the gathering gloom at the side of the road between Newquay an Llandovery to apply eyedrops because I've forgotten to do it at the Mariners Cafe.
*Heidelberg Retinal Tomography