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May contain eye details to make you squick
Jun. 2nd, 2006 10:52 amI went to the eye doctor this morning. A little backstory: i only wear one contact, in my left eye. (the left eye is 20/300, the right eye is about 20/60, and I had issues with it and contacts, so I usually just correct the left eye) Over the last week my eye has progressed from "hmm, that's kinda red" to "wow, that's actively painful and my contact dries out in three minutes." It also is mildly photosensitive (though it's always been more delicate in light than the other, it's been really bad lately.) I was 95% sure it's allergies, but even if it's just a little irritation, it's still an area of my body that I don't really want to damage, so I made an appointment yesterday and got in today. (and I made the appointment even though it wasn't *really* bothering me at the time, but was so glad last night to know that I'd go see the eye doctor in the morning because it went super painful by like 9:30 last night.)
The doctor was new-to-me, though very nice (Dr. Noel, Chance. I can't remember the name of my usual doctor). For a change, she didn't make a big deal about the fact that I don't have back-up glasses, and actually explained why she didn't think this was surprising (glasses make the size of the image differ between eyes, and the differences between prescriptions in my case is so high that the images are vastly different sizes, thus my brain can't easily switch between contacts (which don't do this) and the glasses.) She looked at my eye, then made me throw out my contact ("Just put it in the square hole over there," she said, and I suspected I wasn't going to get to wear it home.) And put in yellow stuff (to check for scratches, I think) and used the blue light extensively, but I think I managed to not scratch it because she didn't frown at me. And then she proved to her satisfaction that my eye is photosensitive (owowow), but my right eye (the non-contacted eye) is fine.
So the diagnosis is no contact in it for a week.
She did fit me with a contact for my good eye, which a very new experience. Because I don't have glasses, my eyes are used to switching between 'good' eyes--during the day, it's my left eye. at night after I've taken out my contacts, it's my right eye. So it's a little disconcerting to have everything *so* clear on my right side, but not completely alien. Like I said, it's not that bad in general, so this is just a baby step better. And it's a new contact, so hopefully my eye will be okay with it. The problems with it were irritation, back in the day, but that was 7 years ago, and in contact lenses that's about a million years ago. So we're trying Acuvue Oasys or something like that, which I'd suspected would be a good contact to switch to in general as I have some problems in my bad eye with blood vessels growing into the cornea--apparently a side effect of my eye not getting enough oxygen--but hadn't actually called my eye care professional about because I still had most of a box left to go through, and that's just a waste, since apparently you can't do anything with the leftover contacts (unless one of you people know something useful to do with them, like the places you can donate old glasses to.). So even if I still end up not wearing a contact in my right eye, I will push to get the new ones for my left eye.
Oh, and I don't know what the offical diagnosis for it is, I forgot to ask, and she didn't say speficially. I think it's just badly irritated. She dilated my bad eye and said it will be like that for a couple of days--apparently the muscle in it was spasming, and that was causing the pain. I don't remember it being painful in any way that I thought was inside, butI will trust her there. And I have drops to put in it every 4 hours. TobraDex. It's apparently a steriod (anti-inflamatory) with an antibiotic. From the notes, I think the antibiotic is mostly just as a preventative thing, the steroid is the important bit (the steriod slows healing while it slows inflamation, the antibiotic is to make sure this doesn't cause any problems by stomping out the bad germs ahead of time.)
And I have a follow up appointment for next tuesday, and I'm guessing I'm leaving work early today as I'm working with my glasses on because everything is too bright otherwise. WAAAAY too bright. I'm to try wearing the contact in my good eye, but if it doesn't work, I'll just have to suck it up and go uncorrected. So more details to follow if necessary.
( picture of my eyes, for kirsten )
The doctor was new-to-me, though very nice (Dr. Noel, Chance. I can't remember the name of my usual doctor). For a change, she didn't make a big deal about the fact that I don't have back-up glasses, and actually explained why she didn't think this was surprising (glasses make the size of the image differ between eyes, and the differences between prescriptions in my case is so high that the images are vastly different sizes, thus my brain can't easily switch between contacts (which don't do this) and the glasses.) She looked at my eye, then made me throw out my contact ("Just put it in the square hole over there," she said, and I suspected I wasn't going to get to wear it home.) And put in yellow stuff (to check for scratches, I think) and used the blue light extensively, but I think I managed to not scratch it because she didn't frown at me. And then she proved to her satisfaction that my eye is photosensitive (owowow), but my right eye (the non-contacted eye) is fine.
So the diagnosis is no contact in it for a week.
She did fit me with a contact for my good eye, which a very new experience. Because I don't have glasses, my eyes are used to switching between 'good' eyes--during the day, it's my left eye. at night after I've taken out my contacts, it's my right eye. So it's a little disconcerting to have everything *so* clear on my right side, but not completely alien. Like I said, it's not that bad in general, so this is just a baby step better. And it's a new contact, so hopefully my eye will be okay with it. The problems with it were irritation, back in the day, but that was 7 years ago, and in contact lenses that's about a million years ago. So we're trying Acuvue Oasys or something like that, which I'd suspected would be a good contact to switch to in general as I have some problems in my bad eye with blood vessels growing into the cornea--apparently a side effect of my eye not getting enough oxygen--but hadn't actually called my eye care professional about because I still had most of a box left to go through, and that's just a waste, since apparently you can't do anything with the leftover contacts (unless one of you people know something useful to do with them, like the places you can donate old glasses to.). So even if I still end up not wearing a contact in my right eye, I will push to get the new ones for my left eye.
Oh, and I don't know what the offical diagnosis for it is, I forgot to ask, and she didn't say speficially. I think it's just badly irritated. She dilated my bad eye and said it will be like that for a couple of days--apparently the muscle in it was spasming, and that was causing the pain. I don't remember it being painful in any way that I thought was inside, butI will trust her there. And I have drops to put in it every 4 hours. TobraDex. It's apparently a steriod (anti-inflamatory) with an antibiotic. From the notes, I think the antibiotic is mostly just as a preventative thing, the steroid is the important bit (the steriod slows healing while it slows inflamation, the antibiotic is to make sure this doesn't cause any problems by stomping out the bad germs ahead of time.)
And I have a follow up appointment for next tuesday, and I'm guessing I'm leaving work early today as I'm working with my glasses on because everything is too bright otherwise. WAAAAY too bright. I'm to try wearing the contact in my good eye, but if it doesn't work, I'll just have to suck it up and go uncorrected. So more details to follow if necessary.
( picture of my eyes, for kirsten )
