Magical hospital appointments today

[AJLang]

Ah, so at least the recent surgery wasn't in vain. What are they trying to achieve with the drugs - is it a blood pressure thing or something entirely different? I'm due for my optician's check soon, had been holding off to see what would happen at the eye hospital. The last time I saw the optician (who happened to be a Type 1 for 17 years!) she said they'd call me back in 6 months to check for glaucoma as the 'puff' test was a little worrying, but I never got the letter so now it's over a year. At least we are lucky enough to live in a country where this sort of stuff is available to us!

Hi Northener I hope that your puff test is ok but if it isn't don't worry as it can usually be treated very easily with eye drops. I was first diagnosed with open angle glaucoma as a result of a puff test when I was 30. The main aim is to use eye drops to keep the pressure in your eyes at a maximum of 22. My blood pressure is not a problem at all and as far as I'm aware there is no link between eye pressure and blood pressure. I started on one type of eye drop, timolol, this was increased to two a few years later and then last year they tried different combinations of three drops but the eye pressure wouldn't drop below 22 and in februar the indicated that I would probably soon need more aggressive treatment. Then In septemer it was discovered I have narrow angle glaucoma which is more worrying due to the risk of closed angle attacks. Even more strangely the pressure has gone up since the two lots of laser - on Tuesday it was 34 in one eye when I was started on the tablets and more drops. Thursday it went down to 27 and I was put on the fifth set of eye drop medicatyion plus the tablets. But this made me really Ill so the good news on Friday was that the pressure was down to 17 but couldn't tolerator the medications. As the tablets were affecting my diabetes badly they've been stopped but we don't know the effect on the pressure hence pressure checks every few days until I see the specialist. Immediate goal seems to be getting a trade off between the side effects of the medications and keeping my sight safe. But it has reached the point that I need to take paracetamol and ibuprofen before the drops to make the headache bearable I'm not dealing with it as well as I would like but feel a bit more positive today .......sorry this has turned into a very very long message

 

[AJLang]

Ps don't worry if you are put on glaucoma drops - Ive had absolutely no problems with them at all until they had to make me take so many and it looks like I've got a particularly complicated version of narrow angle glaucoma and plateau iris😎

 

[Northerner]

Thank you for your explanation AJ. I must admit I didn't really know much about glaucoma. Such a shame that you aren't able to tolerate the meds that seemed to be working, I hope that your pressure checks stay below 22!