What I saw and what I see

What I should See

Bad Eye Morning 1/4/2010

What I am seeing today 1/5/2010

Someone Save my Eye Tonight!

Well, I learned a very important lesson and one that may have cost me big time.

For several weeks I have had some Sinus troubles and finally Last Tuesday I went in to get some antibiotics for what appeared to be a growing sinus infection. Then I awoke Wednesday morning with a pink eye. It didn’t hurt at all but it was red and by the next day it was vbery sore to the touch. I decided that since I was on a Z Pack I would just wait it out. (I tend to play doctor)

Well, Friday night I started seeing Halos around lights and the eye was worse so I went into one of those Urgent care places and they placed me on an eye antibiotic and said it should clear up. Well, Sunday it started to throb and Sunday night when I went to bed I had decided that I would see an ophthalmologist first thing Monday morning. Well, that was the right decision to late.

At about 3 AM I awoke and realized something was very wrong with my eye. Everything was hazy and the pain was rapidly increasing. I took some Motrin and that calmed the pain and I fell back asleep. At 5AM I awoke to screaming pain and was unable to see out of the eye except slight shadows and colors. I started making calls and talked to my POS insurance plan. Yes, the actual name of the plan is POS that should have been a warning. They stated this wasn’t an emergency and top be honest, there is probably nothing an ER could have done but refer me to a specialist anyway.

At 9 AM I camped out on the front door of an ophthalmologist and demanded he look at me. The minute he took some pressure readings I could see his affect change and he started whispering to his assistant and showing her things in my eye. That was the first indication this was a House type thing. The Pressure in my eye was 54 mm Hg and the normal is 17 mm Hg with 20 being high. After an two and a half hours, he was unable to relieve the pressure and I was off to a Glaucoma specialist. The pain was now off the charts and I truly believe I have matched childbirth, some may argue but I will stand my ground. My contractions were 50 times per minute because that is my heart rate and every heart beat felt like I had a butcher knife in my eye, forehead and temple and every beat signaled the knives to take a quarter turn. This continues for over 8 hours and meditation was my only escape. Finally the pressure was dropped to 15 and the pain started to recede and by 9PM last night I was feeling somewhat better although I am still experiencing fog in the eye.

What happened?
The Eye inflammation started from an unknown reason and snowballed due to the design of the eye, they don’t handle inflammation well. The eye, very much like the brain has a barrier that separate eye fluids from blood. When the eye gets inflamed, these barriers break down and the eye converts the leaking blood to proteins that are very sticky. The proteins stuck the Iris of my eye to the lens and that blocked the eyes ability to release fluid and pressure through the angle (valve) of the eye. The pressure builds up and then presses the iris even tighter to the lens. This is a snowball effect and as the pressure increases the optic nerve starts to crush and this is called acute Glaucoma and is a true eye emergency. Duh!

The drugs they used are slowly freeing the iris, it might take days or even surgery and steroids in the eye to eliminate the inflammation. The most interesting drug they used is Diamox.
Acetazolamide (Diamox): This is the most tried and tested drug for altitude sickness prevention and treatment.
I just thought that was ironic in some sense. What might save my life someday on high mountains may save my eye today.
As I know more, I will keep you informed but my warning. If you ever get pink eye, red eye or any eye issue, screw the general practitioners and ER’s and call an eye doctor. This went from a red eye to dangerous in less that a few hours I feel Sunday night, it is nothing to mess with.