Cataract removal from left eye at age 4, when I told the woman this she was like “woooooowwww oh wow that’s sooo young”
Lazy eye and poor visual acuity after cataract removal. This was all years before my diabetes diagnosis.
August diabetic eye screening revealed “haemorrhage within macula” in left eye (where I had pre-existing eye condition mentioned above) but the images weren’t that clear because the eye specialist didn’t use the drops.
Just been today and another specialist says she can’t see any haemorrhage and that if someone else saw it before then it probably just healed on its own
TypeZero, a coupe of years ago now, after, 4 or so in remission, after only one A1c in diagnostic range, I had a screening result stating changes in one eye. Well, I was straight onto my ego driven high horse, with all the "Hoe could that happen to
me?" twaddle.
I contacted the clinic and asked for a copy of the letter sent to my GP, which contains more information on what is actually seen - stage of any change, how many areas of change, etc, although still in a coded, high summary level. That indicated one single spot in one eye, but still not satisfied, I called my friend whose husband just happens to be a consultant opthalmologist, specialising in eye disease.
Needless to say we had a "nice little chat" he hadn't been expecting with his Friday night glass of wine!
After a certain amount of interrogation (him on me, and bearing in mind he had not seen any of my imaging) his advice to me at the time was firstly, not to panic. Secondly, that not everything was diabetes related. Thirdly, most changes are transient (in normies) and that normies can have retinopathy, bleeds oedema and most of the other eye conditions those living with diabetes experience. He commented when doing this imaging, there is no way of knowing if any changes or bleeds are recent or healing, so it could be a fluke of time that anything was noticed. He considered, based purely on what I had told him, that any changes in my eye were unlikely to be serious or too strongly linked to my T2.
He enquired who my usual optician is (we happened to use the same guy), and suggested I go see him for a sight test, where they do the same photography as the screening service. He reckons the guy we use is good. He also warned me there was a decent chance he'd find nothing.
I did that, but I didn't tell the optician up-front of my concerns, I only did that onec we'd been through the hoops. Based on my comment, he insisted on rerunning the imaging and brought another colleague into the room to go through them together, in front of me; concluding there was nothing to see.
So, I have taken a lot from that sobering lesson myself. The takeaways were, where this is unexpected, and where control has been good:
- If it happens again, don't panic
- Acquire the GP letter and images, if I could, although the latter requires more hoop-jumping
- If concerned, seek a second opinion
- Keep blood sugar control in a good place, where possible
- Get on with life. In many cases with minor changes, the old adage of time being a healer is extremely pertinent.
I know I got lucky having a friend in the position he is, hence I'll share what I learned. I'm hoping he and I don't need to have any other "little chats".
I did that