Histo
I think I wrote awhile back about the vision in my left eye suddenly being blurry. I finally got in to see an eye doctor yesterday, and the news wasn’t good.
They no longer have to dilate your eyes to see into the retina… which I was excited about. They have this neat machine that can take pictures without dilation. My insurance (allegedly) covers it, so they had me do that to see what was wrong. My right is is perfect… in fact with my current prescription I have 20/20 vision in my right eye. My left eye, however, is fubar’d.
The pictures showed significant scarring in my left eye, most of it in the macula region. This is the central vision part of the eye. The doc thinks it’s being caused by Histoplasmosis. This is a fungal/bacterial infection that originally starts in the lungs, but in some cases can cause pretty serious eye damage.
I go to see a specialist tomorrow to see what can be done. It’s possible that I will have a permanent blind spot in my right eye, depending on how far along the scarring is and how much it’s encroached on my macula. The doctor yesterday said that some patients can have laser treatment, but with me it wasn’t likely because it was so close to my retina. Laser treament like this can apparently damage your retina. The next option would be surgery… but if you read the link above, even surgery isn’t a 100% solution. In many cases the scarring comes back, sometimes in the same eye, sometimes in the other one… and sometimes in both.
It was not good news. I was hoping that all I needed was a new eye glasses prescription. Turns out it’s kind of a serious problem.
This has been a bad year for health problems. Every time I think I’m back on my feet, and my finances start getting together again, something else happens that puts me back in the hole due to medical bills. I’m not likely this at all.
