Impaired vision in one eye- what might the cause be?

In My Humble Opinion
21

Are you sure that this has just happened? I have the same thing in my left eye. I think I had it for a long time, but my right eye made up for the difference. In my case it was scaring on the back of the eye. I see exactly what you did, a gray spot in the middle of my vision. If that’s the case they can try and fix it, but from what I’ve been told it’s a 50% chance of cataracts after the surgery. I’ve declined.

I never noticed it until Halloween when I wore an eye patch and wondered why I couldn’t see. That was two years ago, and it has gotten a bit better, but I still have some problems.

22

I’m glad that the word incompetence came up, I just wanted to relate my experience. The Danish health system on this level leaves a LOT to be desired. But more on that later. I am off to an ophthalmologist now, appt. in an hour. Will report back!

Fingers and toes crossed,

BB

23

I was hoping I was coming back to you telling us what was wrong.

I hope it is not serious, but three days out rules out what I would have thought it was–a migraine.

24

What did they say it was, in your case? I’d be tempted to do the fix and deal with the cataracts (which are almost trivial to fix these days).

25

It is just scaring on the back of the eye. I really don’t notice it unless I close only my right eye. Nor will it really help with my vision. And while they can fix cataracts I’d rather not go in for eye surgery twice.

I’m not sure how the scar got there, he said a good bump to the head will do it, but I haven’t had one of those for a long time.

26

No Canadian ER would either and our system is socialized. It sounds more like incompetent triage staff. There is just no way a patient showing up to the ER here with sudden unilateral vision loss in one eye would be seen only by a nurse. There’s way too much really serious stuff it could have been.

In the OP’s shoes I wouldn’t have left the ER without insisting on seeing the opthamologist on duty.

27

HA! One thing you learn FAST in DK- the customer/patient is always wrong. There is almost no accountability, people are reluctant to even tell you their names. I have been meaning to start a pit thread about the condition of Danish health services…And this hospital didn’t even have an ophthalmologist on duty, btw.

I saw an ophthalmologist at 2:40 this afternoon, he referred me to a hospital about 30 minutes away where I waited for close to three hours (thank The FSP for podcasts!!!), was seen by someone for about 15 minutes, and I am now meant to go BACK to the hospital in them morning around 9AM.

The first ophthalmologist I saw theorized something involving a packet of liquid in the eyeball. No conclusive answers today.

So tomorrow I may have more info. Until then at least, this super-irritating condition remains.

28

I find it so refreshing to hear someone criticize a Scandinavian public service. Please keep it up.

29

Yeah I know, riiiight?

We also had this conversation:

Nurse: Well, everything looks fine.

Me: Would this examination you just did show things such as, perhaps a detached retina? What are other possible explanations?

Nurse: At 3AM I don’t have the patience for these questions and am not going to give a course in ophthalmology!

Me: Ok… (the ER was not crowded at all and another RN was watching YouTube, nor was I expecting a "course in ophthalmology, and I HIGHLY doubt she was knowledgeable enough for that task anyway)

I WISH I had kindly suggested that she may be in the wrong profession. This kind of thing is run of the mill at the hospital in my neighborhood. I like to think conditions are better elsewhere.

I also experienced a nurse at that hospital throwing a dirty needle literally dripping with blood onto the floor of the room my SO was occupying (with another person!). She was hugely offended when I pointed this out and threw the needle in THE OFFICE WASTEBASKET and not the plastic bio-hazard thingie.

So my experience was decidedly better than the bar I have set for this hospital. Just trying to explain my reactions/state of mind at the time.

30

Wow. Well, at least the ophthalmologist took you seriously! I’m afraid I don’t know entirely what he means by that - there are a number of diagnoses out there involving fluid accumulation and/or pockets in parts of the eye (macular edema, central serous retinopathy, etc.) but it really depends on exactly what’s going on in there. Good luck with the doc tomorrow.

31

I’m curious to see if it is unilateral macular degeneration or something else…
Only because your description made me think of this image: File:Human eyesight two children and ball with age-related macular degeneration.jpg - Wikipedia

32

I meant to post yesterday after getting back from the hospital, but couldn’t find the time and energy. The conclusion for now is no conclusion; I had a test done the results of which will be evaluated on Friday. I wish I could tell you what they did, but the Danish services are not over-communicative, and when they are, they are not overly informative or unambiguous. I had dye injected via an IV and they took some images of my eye.

Later that day my piss was highlighter neon yellow, no joke, that bowl was GLOWING like kryptonite. It was pretty awesome.

The gray fog remains, but I THINK it’s getting a LITTLE better, it seems a little less opaque than it did yesterday. Could just be all in my head, so to speak, but isn’t it all in this case?

-BB

33

Here’s hoping that whatever it is, it does go away! Though it’ll be good to know just whatinthehell it is, in case it’s something that might come back or indicate longer-term problems.

Plus you got day-glo pee, how cool is that!

34

The IV pictures are called fluorescein angiography, which is a very in-depth and appropriate test for something like this. It checks the blood flow in the vessels in the back of the eye and makes sure there’s no leakage of blood or fluids back there, as well as generally giving a very good picture of the backs and sides of your eyes. Any lesions/damage/whatever ought to show up on these pictures.

A similar but far more invasive version that you might have heard of is done on the heart. There, a catheter is inserted through an incision and run up to the heart to squirt a somewhat different dye around in different places, basically for the same reason, to check how the blood flows through it.

35

I forgot to mention - if you also had a different test where you looked into a dark “scope” or hemisphere and watched a little spot of light bouncing around, that’s an OCT, which stands for optical coherence tomography. It’s a super-low intensity laser that does not harm the eye, and is used to measure swelling in the back of the eye, as well as look for things like pockets of fluid and other problems.

36

So I went to the Ophthalmologist yesterday morning, was there until mid-afternoon. I had another blood test, it turns out their working hypothesis was HIV positive status! So they took my blood, sent me home, with Prednisone, which I was not to take unless the HIV test was negative. If it was positive, I’m not sure what the course of action would be. I got a call saying it was negative, meaning I should start the round of Prednisone. 50 Mg a day for three days. They see me again on Monday. I was told this dosage of Prednisone is kind of a wild guess treatment, they are not SURE what is causing the inflammation causing my vision problems.

The Prednisone does seem to be working- I started the round yesterday at 6 PM, and the fog seems to be lifting. More precisely, I can kind of see through the field of fog which is diminished in size. I still would have great difficulty though, with just my left eye to use. I try this periodically (just use my left eye to see how managable tasks are).

On the downside I was told that the inflammation is hazardous because vessels can rupture back there and wreak serious havoc.

I in no way mean to imply that I’m being disingenuous when I say this, but take what I say with a grain of salt regarding precise details. This is all happening in a foreign language and it’s hard to keep track of details.
I’m also happy to report that Glostrup Hospital, where I am being treated, seems well equipped, clean, professional, etc, as opposed to the kind of shenanigans that go on at Bispebjerg Hospital in my neighborhood where your feet stick to the floor a la a filthy movie theater EVERYWHERE, there is next to no security and no reception area to speak of, and nurses throw needles on the floor of your room (see anecdote above). When I was there in the ER last week for this eye thing I waited for a long time while a nurse, presumably on a break, watched YouTube right in front of me. Her back to me, me looking over her shoulder about two meters away. She was watching Dancing with the Stars while I waited to be seen. This went on for a good 15 minutes, charitably- I was getting into it, I had a favorite picked and everything by the time I was seen. Keep in mind they had no idea why I was there yet. Next to empty ER. Great service, Great taste.

Happily, Glostrup Hospital seems to be several magnitudes better than Bispebjerg Hospital, which BTW, totally looks like the set of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest.

37

Well, I’m glad that your vision is getting better rather than worse. And glad that you’re HIV negative!

FWIW… (I’m American) I’ve been all over Western Europe, including Moscow, and Copenhagen was the dirtiest place I saw.

38

I also take offence at the idea that socialized medicine is the cause of a truly shitty hospital with shitty people working in it. I’ve been in hospitals in various places in western Canada, and I have never seen conditions like the ones described. The hospitals might be run down and old, but they are never filthy, and I have never felt like the care I was receiving was second-rate. It sounds a lot more like there is a problem with THAT hospital, than there is problem with socialized medicine.

Fingers crossed that the steroids work - I would hate to have that happen to my eye. There is a history of serious eye problems in my family, and I am always nervous about my eyes.

39

Sounds like they’re thinking it might be uveitis - which basically means “inflammation of the eye” but it’s the technical term for it. There are various causes. Prednisone is a common treatment for that; the only problem is that high doses over long times can cause annoying or worse side effects, and typically (at least with high doses) you have to taper off the medication.

40

Oh, and if it was HIV you probably would have been started on antiretroviral (anti-HIV) drugs, and almost certainly started on gancyclovir tablets as they’d have suspected your eye problem was CMV retinitis.

Edit: link to Wiki article on uveitis (note: kinda ‘scary’ eye pic at the top of the article - not the kind you have). It sounds like they’re suspecting you have posterior uveitis, which is inflammation in the retina, or perhaps intermediate (inside the ‘gel’ of the eye).