Picture description: a Snellen chart lit up in a medical room, with a trolley just behind the chart, a sink to the left of the room and a desk chair to the right. In the foreground my leg and arm can partially be seen. I am wearing white trainers, a pink blouse and have on two hospital surgery wristbands, one white and one red.
Another day, another blood test, another injection... oh and another complication. This time; high eye pressure 🤦🏼♀️.
I love my hospital but yesterday was notttt a nice visit. It started with having my bloods taken (this is fine, a needle in my arm I don’t mind 🤣), followed by scans. The scans were actually the best bit of the appointment as they were my first ones I've had done since my steroid implant and they showed improvements; I thought things had seemed a bit better, so I was extremely glad it was reflected in the scan. I'm going to be forever grateful to modern medicine and those administering it (thank you to my NHS heroes).
But then of course it had to go downhill from there. I'd had a sneaky feeling I would be diagnosed with high eye pressure; call me psychic, but just an hour and a half before my appointment I had text my sister saying I felt like I would be told my eye pressure was too high. I knew it was a potential risk from both my steroid implant and first injection, but I also *just knew* it was already up. You know when you just know? I think when you have a health problem you become extra sensitive to changes, and can identify straight away when something isn't quite as it should be. My eyes have been feeling very dry and achy lately; I don't even know if that's a symptom of high pressure, but it's unusual for me, and that was enough for me to be pretty sure something else was going wrong.
And sure enough, once they managed to get my pressures (I say managed as I am the world's most difficult patient when it comes to measuring pressure, IT TOUCHES YOUR EYE AND I CAN'T HELP BUT FLINCH... IT TOUCHES YOUR EYE!!! only very, very lightly but it's horrible 😂), they recorded one reading at 28mm HG and another at 26mm HG. The normal pressure reading (according to my beloved friend, Doctor Google), is approximately 15mm HG, and anything higher than 21mm HG is abnormal. High eye pressure is problematic because it puts you at risk for glaucoma, a condition that damages the optic nerve of your eye. The optic nerve is essentially the big dog, the main character, the manager - however you want to think of it - of your vision, so if that becomes compromised, you end up with irreversible vision loss.
So high pressure. Another problem to add to the list in this eye disease fight. This is not exhausting at all 🤦🏼♀️
Treatment *literally* began straight away. The nurse who took the pressure went to consult my doctor and came back minutes later with a diuretic in hand. Let me tell you,
being incredibly thirsty and desperate to pee at the same time is not the one, especially during the hour and a bit journey back home later... and no, we couldn't stop at a service station as I'm shielding 😂. I had to have pressure reducing drops too, and I was sent home with a hefty prescription for drops to use everyday for at least three months... because yano, PIC couldn’t just let me enjoy the improvements from my implant 🤦🏼♀️
Picture desciption: the image on the left is of the pill holder and water for the diuretic I had to take, positioned on the arm of a chair. The image on the right is of my high pressure drops (Tiopex) I have been prescribed in their packaging. The packaging is white with a blue 'bullseye' like circle in the top left corner and a green curve in the bottom left corner.
I then had my second anti-VEGF injection - what my appointment was primarily for - and oh man, this time it hurttttt 😬 My first injection had gone okay, a tiny bit of pain and a little pressure, but nothing to complain about. My implant was a little more pressure and had me inhaling sharply but then was over in seconds. This injection though... oooowww. I might as well have done it without numbing drops. Okay, I'm being a drama queen here, I highly doubt I would be saying that if I'd of actually had to have done it without numbing drops 😂 But, it really did hurt. To the point where I actually said during the injection, "oh my god, that hurts!!". Usually pain I can just breathe through.
The scariest bit though came right after the pain, because everything slowly went completely black, and the panic quickly set in. My vision came back within seconds, but suddenly the pain was nothing compared to the intense fear I felt when that blackness seeped over. Luckily I knew I was okay when after I stressily said, '"I can't see anything, it's all black!", my surgeon asked how many fingers she was holding up. I usually HATE that question from people (if you have to wear glasses/contacts with a high prescription, then you know what I'm talking about 😂), but I was very, very relieved to be able to count two fingers. I think the surgeon may have hit a blood vessel, as my eye currently looks like it’s been clawed to bits by my cats. I guess this is potentially what triggered the pain? From what I've heard from the PIC/Macular Degeneration community, hitting blood vessels during injections is pretty common. It really seems like a game of minesweeper; you know that old game on those giant PCs we used to own? I don't feel like anyone used actually knew how to play that so you just clicked the random squares because you never really knew where a mine was hiding - or was five/six year old me just really terrible at minesweeper? Anyway, the point of the analogy is, to my knowledge, blood vessels are just hiding about your eye, so it's pretty easy and common for them to get hit during an injection. And judging by some images I've seen about the online communities, it actually seems I got off pretty lightly, so I dread to think how the pain would be if it was more severe... but let's not dwell, we have enough going on as it is 😂
Picture description: a close up shot of my blue eye, with a dilated pupil and two prominent red marks going across my eye; one horizontal and the other vertical. There are additional, less obvious red marks between the two main streaks.
Thankfully, post injection, bandaged up with my sexy eye patch on under my glasses and secured with Sellotape across my forehead, I was released back home. It wasn't my best look, but of course, I took a selfie to mark the occasion, because obviously, I felt somewhat glamorous. I doubt I'll use it as a profile picture any time soon though because surgery means no makeup, and I haven't had my brows tinted in a while either due to lockdown, so I looked a *little* less fleeky than usual. But glamorous nonetheless. Not glamorous enough to upload it here either, mind. But just trust me when I say, it was a head-turning look.
I got home, had a big cup of tea, two shortbread millionaires, cheese on toast, chocolate buttons (I'm sure the science would find junk food to be the perfect post injection cure), a bath, napped on and off for the rest of the day, and allowed myself to wallow in self-pity during the moments I was awake.
Picture description: a cup of tea in a blue mug with gold detailing, on a plate with two mini shortbread millionaires.
I've done less napping today but I am still quite sorry for myself as my eye has been achy, blurry and has some lovely big post-injection floaters to annoy me. The issue of the high pressure hadn't really affected me until today. It hit me when the ophthalmology team told me I probably couldn't wear my lenses whilst I was on the drops for the next three months. They're double checking, but I just feel like I've been gut punched. When you have a high prescription, glasses aren't always something you feel comfortable or confident wearing. You pay extortionate amounts of money to have lenses thinned but they still protrude out of your frames, and the extreme magnification gives you beady-looking eyes and a funny shaped face. It sounds vain, and maybe it is, but that's the black and white of it; I hate how I look in my glasses and I hate being seen in them for that reason. So I'm hoping the team will come back with some good news that I can wear my lenses, as I just don't want to add 'feeling miserable about the way I look' to the list of stressors that PIC has/is causing. But hey, I did say in my first post that autoimmune disease stories aren't complete without lots of dramatic ups and downs... maybe this is the next plot twist my condition has planned 🤷
I guess all that's left to say is... tune in for the next episode of The Big PICture. Hopefully, it will all be lovely stories about reduced pressure readings, contact lens wearing, and just all round success, but we shall see! Fingers crossed for the time being anyway.
B, x
Comments