Been told to try Prednisolone - not happy

[Tetley]

Okay, so yesterday we went to the same NHS eye doctor I saw last time, trying to give him the benefit of the doubt for previously being very unsympathetic and basically saying that there wasn't really anything wrong with me.
Anyway, I've been dreading the appointment for weeks as he was really rough with my eyes before (the first NHS doctor who has dissapeared was lovely and supportive).
I'm just going to nag about some negative things that happened which in my opinion made him seem like a complete arse, I apologise for the rant..

*He asked whether I was still taking the steroids even though he told me to only take them for 6 weeks (didn't seem to know what dosage he had previously given me).
*When asked whether I was working I said "no this problem has forced me to stop for a while", he just went all quiet and stared blankly at me for a little while, basically to say "why the hell aren't you working, this is nothing". He asked the same question last time with exactly the same reaction... I wish he would read his notes on me and not judge my situation as i hate not working.
*I asked him point blank when he wanted to examine my eyes whether he was going to poke them with this cotton bud thing, it took me three goes for him to actually tell me what he was going to do, bare in mind I can't see much without my glasses on, so trust is important.
*He became very frustrated when I said it was hurting my eyes, almost annoyed and said 'well i could go about it quicker' implying that it was my fault.
*He was extremely rough and heavy when looking at my eyes, I needed anasthetic (the first guy had no problem examining my eyes).
*He basically said to me i cant put you on steroids for the rest of your life and was unsure of anything else to help.
*Even though he said there was nothing wrong with my eyes last time, this time he said that the steroids had made an improvement? So clearly there must have been a problem before?!?

My fiance sat through the whole thing with me and we both left feeling very angry, the man was very rude. I am supposedly fine according to him now except for slight Blepharitis which he's given me cream for.

All in all, we gave him the benefit of the doubt last time and thought he was rough because he wanted to do the job quickly or was having a bad day. I will say to my normal doctor that I don't want to see the same eye doctor next time.

I struggle with anxiety and depression, and tend to usually ignore these happenings by just thinking it was in my head and I was over-reacting but my girlfriend felt the same way about the whole thing and was fuming.

I would appreciate your thoughts.

Thanks for listening.

[jlg_uk]

I must say that my experience of DES related help on the NHS hasn't been the best either. That's not to say some people haven't tried to help (though without much sucess), but also I've seen ophth's (you know, the people who specialise in eye problems) that don't know their arse from their elbow nor seem to understand that just because you don't have cancer in your eye or are going blind, what you do have is actually a big life affecting problem.

I've posted my experiences already, and I hope I've been as fair and objective as one can be under the situation. I must say that although I've reacted to drops before and things, I haven't had rough treatment of my eyes thus far. There was one point when a trainee GP was going to do a Schirmers on me (her first) and I expressed some concern, but that went OK.

Hang in there mate - good idea to bring someone with you for support (I'm single so thusly worse off than you in that regard :P).

Oh, what cream for belph by the way? Do you have anterior of posterior bleph? Don't know about you, but for me 6 weeks of 0.5% prednisolone didn't help much.