sdgray22 said:
I would like some sort of explanation for what has happened to me. I went to the eye casualty with an abrasion on my cornea, Saw the Dr there who are exactly the same doctors you see if referred by a doctor with say glaucoma or say if you have diabetic retinopathy and need some treatment. He looked at the abrasion and because I am diabetic type 2 checked my retina's . Quote you have no signs of diabetic retinopathy unquote he said. I said I have my screening in a week should I go - yes he says you need to be in the system. This was my first screening. So I go along and have the pictures taken thinking no problem I know there is nothing there. So today the letter arrives I have background retinopathy according to them. This is the Diabetic Eye Screening Programme. Would anybody like to comment on that, I am completely flabbergasted. You can see why people get exasperated with Doctors and Nurses none of them as far as I can see rarely agree with eachother. Who do i believe now!!!! I personally am totally sick of one nurse saying one thing, another something completely different I now check everything they say to me and do my own research I do not believe any of them. One Dr says one thing and another Dr something else no wonder the faith in the NHS is non existent with many people.
I had this a few years ago but the other way round. A letter from screening saying I had maculopathy, then when i went to see the consultant he said there wasn't any.
More recently I have had a doctor say I had no new vessels in my right eye, then another doctor I saw said there were. In fact the first doctor got it really wrong as he said my left eye had some new vessels but nothing too bad, so I went to the second doctor as part of my regular clinic check a couple of weeks later thinking I knew the situation. But they said it was a lot worse, I would need urgent laser and that it was high risk in the left eye and some new activity in the right. So I was completely suprised how could the other one have given me such a different story?
I think you have to look on the bright side and think that whatever background retinopathy they saw must be very marginal or else the first doc would have seen them. Were youre eyes dilated when the first doctor looked?
If you had really obvious signs of retinopathy I'd like to think both the doctor and the eye screening people would have seen it.
I know it is not nice to be told you have anything wrong with your eyes, even mild background retinopathy ( I think its the fear of what it may lead to rather than the stage you're actually at) but with good control background retinopathy can be reversed.
Most diabetics will develop background retinopathy at some point, and most of them don't go on to develop the proliferative form which is where you need treatment.