Seeing a private ophthalmologist in the UK

[jlg_uk]

Reference link on Herpetic eye disease: http://www.clevelandclinic.org/healt...asp?index=8861

Irish Eyes - are you saying steroid use caused your cataract?

[eva b]

jlg,
I read your link to herpetic eye disease with interest...it's how my own problems started. With the singles variety, which was mis-diagnosed and mis-treated at the time, and it was the subsequent sometimes twice weekly visits to ER depts and specialists (with all the diagnostic drops they use to check the eyes) which I believe gave me my current dry eye problems...never had any issues.


Although the shingles did leave me with permenent corneal scarring in one eye which does affect my visision (but is, mercifully, correctable to a great extent).

If you had either type of the herpes virus they would have detected it with the fluorescein staining by now. And your vision would be seriously affected...believe me!

I find the level of detail you provide most informative, as I'm sure do many others...and if anyone is bored, then they don't have to read it do they?

What I find particularly interesting is that a lot of us here fall in between the two specialities: Eyelid and Anterior Segment...which is possibly why there seems to be so much trouble getting anywhere with it all.

I shall follow our progress with great interest, so please make sure to keep us posted. Best of luck!

[irish eyes]

steroids and cataract

Hi jlg

Yes, steroids did indeed cause the cataract - but it was the only thing I could use to reduce the inflammation in the back of the eye. It's that or lose the sight in the eye - so there wasn't really an option. As I have had some really bad episodes of iritis (uveitis) I have had to use a high potency drop - (this will make you wince...) I have twice had injections of the stuff into the eye itself because the drops were not having an effect.

The doctors have to emphasise the side effects but I had no choice but to use them for months on end. The cataract really doesn't bother me and it's only really noticeable if I get tired. And I refuse to have my photograph taken because it shows up as a `pale eye' !! So I will always be the one taking the photos but never posing for them. I find the dry eye and bleph much tougher to contend with.