My Eyes…A Quick Update

I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but it has been about two weeks since I last wrote about my double vision problems.  I figured that, just because I have to live with it every single day of my life, doesn’t mean that you have to as well!  However, in my last post (this one) I mentioned how I had found some eye exercises I was going to try, in order to strengthen my eye muscles.  I also had found that patching the good eye for a certain period a day was also supposed to force the troubled eye to get stronger.  So, with a little mustard seed of faith, I plunged into my new regimen.

After having done these things for a while, I noticed that I could get the TV screen to be one, but only for a few minutes and then it would separate again, very much like the picture at the top. But I kept trying.  And I put a patch in one side of clear glasses and would wear them from time to time.  The problem with that is that I very often watch TV and read at the same time and I also need reading glasses.  As for driving, I CAN NOT drive without one side of my sunglasses being patched.  The double vision is very sensitive to light and motion.  A couple of times I’ve peeked out from under the sunglasses while driving to “test” my eyes and immediately found myself veering into another lane!  Bad idea!

Two weeks ago I was going to meet my friend, Dee, for lunch.  Before I met her, I went for groceries, wearing the patched sunglasses.  Then I drove downtown, still wearing the patched  sunglasses.  This was longer than I usually wore them.  While we were sitting in the restaurant, it suddenly occurred to me that I was seeing only one of her!!!  It lasted a little longer than a couple of minutes and I was cautiously excited.  When she started to divide, I quickly did the far/near exercise and could get her back.  All through our visit this happened and I drove home thinking maybe I had made a breakthrough. That night, however, I could only get two TVs, no matter how I tried.

Then last week I met my friend Charles for lunch and the same thing happened.  The period of seeing one of him didn’t quite last as long, but that restaurant was a bit brighter, so that could have been a factor.

So here’s where I am now.  I’m in Limbo Land.  I’m able to have my moments of single vision and when that happens my heart leaps with joy.  Unfortunately, I also have too many times when things are just as they always were and nothing works to change it.  Walking outside to the mailbox is still like being on some drug trip, with two sidewalks and double cars going by.  Charles thinks the little good spells mean that I’m getting better and I want to believe it.  But, for crying out loud, why can’t I get more and better results?  Why don’t the good spells last longer?  I can “feel” my eyes trying to focus sometimes from near to far and back, but is that a good thing or a bad thing?  And when I go through a period when I absolutely can’t get the single vision, it hits me hard and I feel so depressed.  Lately, it seems like the bad times are outweighing the good ones.  At this point I just don’t know what to do.  I see my endocrinologist today for an update on the Grave’s disease, but last time he didn’t seem all that interested in my eyes.  (Of course, HE can see normally!)  Anyway, he was starting to recommend an ophthalmologist, but I told him I already had one.  Maybe I’ll ask for the name today anyway.  Is there any doctor on earth who wants to cure me?

I guess I’ll just have to keep on keeping on…and hang onto my little mustard seed and hope for a miracle.

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Proceeding To Plan C…

I keep telling myself that if life were easy all the time we wouldn’t really appreciate the good normal times.  Yup, that’s what I keep telling myself.  However I must admit that lately I feel a bit like that little guy on the left.

Anyway, when I last left you, I was going to try to adjust to some prisms put in plain glasses to make my double vision easier to handle.  Unfortunately, one of the prisms was the wrong number (they don’t make the number I need,) so what I ended up with was extremely blurry vision.  It was a total bust.  $20 for the plain glasses (my ophthalmologist got me a deal) and $35 for each prism, none of this covered by my insurance because I didn’t take the vision plan.  $90 for more frustration.  Lovely.

About this time I came upon the Bible verse, Matthew 17:20 that ends …”If ye have faith as a grain of mustard seed, ye shall say unto this mountain, Remove hence to yonder place; and it shall remove; and nothing shall be impossible unto you.”  Well, I started out this ordeal having loads and loads of big-time faith and was totally sure that I’d be cured almost immediately.  After days and weeks went by, it became harder to maintain that enthusiasm.  But seeing this verse last Monday felt like a message.  I needed to start over with faith as a grain of mustard seed, not as a big honking elephant in a parade.  So I did.  Baby steps.

I happened to be searching Google images later that day when I saw a page with the word “diplopia.”  (For those of you new here, that means “double vision.”  That’s your new word for the day!)  Anyway I followed the link and ended up on a page that was talking about eye patches.  It said for double vision to be sure to wear the patch on the good eye, so that the muscles of the troubled eye would have to work harder and get stronger.  My eye doctor had said that my right eye had the most inflamed muscles and the fact they couldn’t track with the left eye was what made my vision double.

Right then I had an epiphany. All this time I’ve been thinking that my eye muscles must still be inflamed, despite the fact that I’ve been on one of the most powerful steroids you can take for a month and a half.  But, reading this made me realize that perhaps the inflammation has gone down, but that the muscles, which haven’t been doing anything for almost three months, are just very weak.  That happens with muscles in your body if you don’t use them.  Right? About then an imaginary light appeared above my head.  “Hark!  What is yonder light?  Could it be the slightest glimmer of, dare I say it? HOPE?  Methinks it could be!”  I immediately removed the prisms from the plain glasses and put black paper in the left side, determined the wear them at least an hour a day, if not more, to start to strengthen those muscles.

As I continued to read, I found some exercises to strengthen eye muscles.  Two of them didn’t make much sense to me.  But one of them was tantalizing.  In it, you concentrate on something, like a pen, that’s six inches from your eyes, for five seconds.  Then you glance at something twenty feet away for five seconds, then back for five seconds, then far, etc., etc.  You do this twenty times several times a day.  I tried it, staring at a pen, then glancing at the television.  And for the FIRST TIME IN A LONG TIME there was only ONE television!  I was so excited that I held it too long and the TV morphed back into two.  I do this kind of thing all day every day now.  Sometimes it works beautifully and sometimes not so much, especially outside.  I still can’t drive with both eyes.  And I still can’t seem to manage to watch a whole show on TV without seeing double.  But I won’t give up. The fact that it works even sometimes, is encouraging.  It takes time for weak muscles to strengthen and I’ve only been doing the patch glasses and exercises a few days.

It may be nothing.  But hey, it could be something…okay a very tiny something…maybe something just about the size of a mustard seed?

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The Eye Doctor

As promised in my last post, I’ll pick up my “doctor story” where I left off.  That was when the endocrinologist suggested I go back to my ophthalmologist regarding my double vision.  Oh, by the way, he did keep me on the steroids, just stepped down the dosage.  According to him, the steroids could still work, due to the fact that they’re supposed to have a cumulative effect.

So, I decided to go home and call my eye doctor.  Let me tell you about this wonderful woman, let’s call her “Dr. H.”  She’s a very brilliant ophthalmologist who has never lost her humanity.  I discovered her a couple of years ago when I apparently was carrying a tiny little rock in my eye for several days.  (I wondered why it hurt so damned much!)  She was so nice at the time that I kept her name in my planner.  Then, this past year, when I had a “Significant Birthday,” I decided to see her to simply get a thorough eye exam.  Little did I know that I would be returning several months later and that she would be become such a good friend.

She’s the one who scheduled MRI’s for my double vision problem and diagnosed the Grave’s Disease.  After I went to my regular doctor who referred me to the endocrinologist, she actually called me on her lunch hour to see how I was doing! I was totally stunned.  Most of the doctors I know rely on their nurses and support people to communicate with the patient.  At the time she told me to call her back in a month to let her know what was happening.  Well, it had been over a month, so I called and told one of the technicians why I was calling.  She said she would pull my file and give my message to the doctor.

About an hour later the phone rang, and it was Dr. H.  She started out, “Hey Star, what’s happening?  How are you doing, Kid?”  I summarized what had happened and that this was Week Ten of my nightmare.  I told her how the specialist had kicked the ball back into her court and told her about the options I had read about.

Regarding the medication I had found, she had never heard of it, but thought it sounded interesting.  Then I brought up the procedure of radiation of the eye muscles about which I had heard mixed results.  She was definitely against that idea, due to the risk of things that could go wrong.  Then I told her about two cases I knew  and read about where people with diplopia got prisms in their glasses and, in both cases, their eyes corrected themselves.  Since I don’t wear glasses (except for reading,) I was particularly interested in “press-on” prisms which fit into glasses and can be removed and changed.

She jumped on this idea and said, “You wanna come in and we’ll measure for them?”  When I asked what she had open, she said, “Oh, just come in.  I’ll get you in.  I know how miserable you must be.”  (Again, is this a cool doctor, or what?)

So, long story short, she held up different prisms to each eye and we finally she found a combination which gave me perfect single vision!  I was so excited.  BUT, (and there’s always a but, isn’t there?) the prescription for me was 15/14.  When she called the optical place across the street, they told her that the press-on prisms weren’t made in 14, so they’d have to do 15/15.  I got a cheap pair of plain lens glasses they had (manufacturer’s demos) and took them over.  The optical place said they’d be ready on Friday.

By now I know enough to not get my hopes up.  When I tried the glasses on, my spirits sank.  Everything was kind of blurry and a lot was still double. Sob!

This is what the prism looks like.  It’s cut to the shape of the lens.

In my case the lines go horizontal on one lens and vertical on the other.  It’s like having little Venetian blinds on your eyes.  The optical woman told me that part of the problem might be the cheap lenses in the glasses and that if I could get these to work, they could replace those with optical-grade lenses.  What I feared is that changing that one number changed everything.  But then, there’s also, according to the woman, a period of adjustment with these things.  So, I took them home.

Don’t let it be said that I didn’t try everything!  I’m going to “practice” with these glasses on and off, if, for no other reason, to “remind” my eye muscles what they are supposed to be doing.  Maybe these prisms, along with the continued steroids to reduce the inflammation, will work the miracle I’ve been waiting for for so long.

I guess time will tell…  After all, what else do I have left?

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