Friday, November 21, 2008

Eye yai yai!

This morning I had my eye appointment to check the prescription which I was so sure was faulty. (RECAP: Last week the glasses-lady fixed the frames so my eyes weren't straining as badly, but my right eye has still been blurry. UPDATE: My eyes have felt very dry and irritated lately. I haven't been able to wear my contacts for more than a day without getting little patches of redness on my eyes, especially the right one. That's important for later.)

Well my doctor thought it was pretty strange that I was sitting there in his office asking for a new prescription when I just got a new one not even three months ago. But I was sure he had just done something wrong and written down the wrong numbers or something. He began to look at my eyes and do the whole "Is this clearer? How about this? 1 or 2? 2 or 3? 3 or 1?" thing, 'yknow, till you're so completely confused about what is clear and what isn't you just want your old glasses back? Well, NOTHING helped my right eye. He kept strengthening it and changing it and nothing was getting any clearer. Plus I told him that my right eye has been blurry looking at things up-close too, which has never happened before. 

So he sent me back out to the wheel-of-misfortune to run every eye test known to man, including the hot air balloon stare-down and the surprise-puff-of-air-torture device...and even some new toys I've never had the privilege of playing with, one of which required numbing drops for my eyes which freaked me out a bit.  He also dilated my eyes, which I've never had done before. I never knew my pupils could get that big. They reminded me of cartoon eyes or something...pretty weird. 

One of the tests (I believe it was the space-age-Twilight-zone thingy) showed that while three months ago I didn't have astigmatism, now I'm at a three. I don't really know what that means, but apparently rapid progression up the astigmatism scale is unusual. Oh and not good, definitely a bad thing. BUT, the test that required numbing drops showed that I have good corneal thickness, which means I have generally healthy eyes. Yay me!

After all this he decided that I have one of two things:
I could have Keratoconus (Yes, I had to look that word up in an online dictionary of eye disorders to know how to spell it.) This would stink big time, most likely leading to a corneal transplant at some point down the road. STINK BIG TIME. Bad bad bad.

But I could also have something else called (and since I haven't been able to find the name of it anywhere on the internet I'm guessing it's spelled like this) Tyginson disease. It's a hormonal condition found in women in their mid-20's (that's me!).  It's almost a viral condition that effects the eye making it more sensitive (explaining why I haven't been able to wear my contacts comfortably for a while now), dry and irritated. The irritation then leads to swelling of the lens area of the eye, I guess, and that causes blurred vision. I explained to him that my eye seems to get more blurry as the day goes on, and that seemed to confirm his decision. 

He's going to treat me for Tyginson's for a month and then check my eye again. If things have progressed in the wrong direction, we'll have to take another look at me having that other thing that I don't wanna spell again. But for now I'm praying with all my might that this will help. He prescribed some very fancy eye drops and I'm not supposed to wear my contacts AT ALL for the next month. Good thing I bought these hotty totty glasses, that's all I'm sayin'.  

I'm also really praying that maybe these drops will help enough (and quickly enough) that I can enjoy New York City. I don't wanna be squinting all the way through Phantom of the Opera, y'know? (Guess it's good I found us such great seats though, huh? *SQUEAL*)

Anyways, keep me in your prayers. I'm trying to stay positive about this. Check back on my positive attitude in a week if these drops haven't worked, though. *haha*


2 comments:

Michelle said...

Who is your eye doctor? If it ends up being KC then I can testify that Dr. Gangadahr is THE MAN! Normally with KC your corneas are thinner because they're coning so hopefully that's not what it is. If that IS what it is then I can probably answer just about any question you have as a patient.

a chick named Toni... said...

Sarah I am so sorry that you are going through this! I will keep you in my prayers...definately want you to be able to enjoy your trip!