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I have been reading here for several months. I can't tell you how many of your suggestions have helped me.
My saga started in March of this year. I woke up with a terrible pain in my right eye a couple of times a week. I went to an opthalmologist who told me I had corneal erosions. He said they may be recurrent corneal erosions since there was no injury history, but it was too early to tell. He started me on some steroid drops, antibiotic drops, muro drops and a nighttime ointment.
Nothing really seemed to help, and the erosions got worse. The doctor never scheduled me for follow up, so I just figured I was doomed with the RCE's forever.
One month later, my eye really began to hurt even more, all day and all night. Then I started losing my vision in my right eye. I had read a lot about RCE by that time and felt something else was going on.
I made an appointment with a different clinic. I was diagnosed with shingles of the eye. They gave me antiviral meds and drops, which made a big difference right away. The doctor there said I might have been misdiagnosed by the first doctor, but he said he was suprised that an opthalmalogist would have missed that.
Once the shingles cleared, the doctor was able to see what he called a good sized crater in my cornea, so he said the first doctor was right about the corneal erosion, and the shingles may have come later.
The erosions just kept getting worse and worse, until I was having them everynight, and then several times a night every night. My quality of life deteriorated and I was miserable despite treatment.
My doctor and his entire clinic was wonderful, and he just kept trying different things. I also read here and tried suggestions from this site. My doctor also referred me to another doctor in his clinic that would do surgery on my eye if things did not improve. The surgeon added some more medicines and lid scrubs and started following me closely.
In the meantime, my GI doctor referrred me to the corneal specialist at Dean McGee Eye Institute. He did not want me having any surgery without seeing the corneal specialist first. I have celiac disease and a lot of medical problems due to that, and he felt this was one more problem which might be autoimmune related.
The corneal specialist diagnosed RCE, map-dot-fingerprint dystrophy, and an inflammatory problem, either rosacea of the eye, or sjogrens. He said he didn't know which inflammatory process I had, and it did not matter to his treatment, as he would treat all inflammatory problems the same. It would be upto my regular doctor to sort out the origins, but most likely celiac related. He liked the regime I was on, and tweaked my meds a little. He said to give it 2 months and come back if I was not better, then he would do surgery, but it would not be with a laser, it would be with a diamond burr. He said a laser should never touch my eye.
Sorry this is so long, but the good news is that I am much better now. I went from feeling very hopeless to finding things quite manageable. I will do a post of what worked for me in the near future.
My saga started in March of this year. I woke up with a terrible pain in my right eye a couple of times a week. I went to an opthalmologist who told me I had corneal erosions. He said they may be recurrent corneal erosions since there was no injury history, but it was too early to tell. He started me on some steroid drops, antibiotic drops, muro drops and a nighttime ointment.
Nothing really seemed to help, and the erosions got worse. The doctor never scheduled me for follow up, so I just figured I was doomed with the RCE's forever.
One month later, my eye really began to hurt even more, all day and all night. Then I started losing my vision in my right eye. I had read a lot about RCE by that time and felt something else was going on.
I made an appointment with a different clinic. I was diagnosed with shingles of the eye. They gave me antiviral meds and drops, which made a big difference right away. The doctor there said I might have been misdiagnosed by the first doctor, but he said he was suprised that an opthalmalogist would have missed that.
Once the shingles cleared, the doctor was able to see what he called a good sized crater in my cornea, so he said the first doctor was right about the corneal erosion, and the shingles may have come later.
The erosions just kept getting worse and worse, until I was having them everynight, and then several times a night every night. My quality of life deteriorated and I was miserable despite treatment.
My doctor and his entire clinic was wonderful, and he just kept trying different things. I also read here and tried suggestions from this site. My doctor also referred me to another doctor in his clinic that would do surgery on my eye if things did not improve. The surgeon added some more medicines and lid scrubs and started following me closely.
In the meantime, my GI doctor referrred me to the corneal specialist at Dean McGee Eye Institute. He did not want me having any surgery without seeing the corneal specialist first. I have celiac disease and a lot of medical problems due to that, and he felt this was one more problem which might be autoimmune related.
The corneal specialist diagnosed RCE, map-dot-fingerprint dystrophy, and an inflammatory problem, either rosacea of the eye, or sjogrens. He said he didn't know which inflammatory process I had, and it did not matter to his treatment, as he would treat all inflammatory problems the same. It would be upto my regular doctor to sort out the origins, but most likely celiac related. He liked the regime I was on, and tweaked my meds a little. He said to give it 2 months and come back if I was not better, then he would do surgery, but it would not be with a laser, it would be with a diamond burr. He said a laser should never touch my eye.
Sorry this is so long, but the good news is that I am much better now. I went from feeling very hopeless to finding things quite manageable. I will do a post of what worked for me in the near future.
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