Today Dr. P. took a look at my eyes and pronounced them "fairly stable." From my point of view, three things have changed since I saw him last March:- The right eyelid is a little more retracted and I consistently tape the eye shut at night.
- I need to use far fewer vials of artificial tears.
- I only have isolated days of eye pressure and orbital pain. "Hiccoughs" of pain.
Everything else is the same: the swelling, the injection, the double vision while gazing up and to the right, too. My proptosis measures the same as in December: 22 mm. in the left eye and 23 in the right. March's measurement was 22/22, which is within the margin of error with the Hertel instrument.
The ophthalmologist thinks I had this before, in a less severe form, given my history of puffy gritty eyes lasting 3 or 4 months, back in 1993. He also thinks that while this bout is worse, I will not progress to the Marty Feldman stage, will not lose vision and will not need orbital recession surgery. If time does not lower my right eyelid, I may need to see a plastic surgeon about advancing it so I can stop taping it shut at night and stop looking like Bill the dadburned Cat, but that will take another 24 months or so, to make sure that my eyes are done.
Visual field testing was fine, although staring at that white, featureless background was kind of psychedelic after a while. I started seeing great waves of rose color in my left eye, which messed up my perception of some of the dimmer flashes of light. So the test said "Marginal" rather than "Within normal limits," as it had for the other eye. But it also said, "Low test reliability." Eye presure is good, optic nerves look good, etc., etc.
So the relative stability of signs and symptoms uggest that I am in what they call the plateau phase of GO right now. It's a time during which symptoms ease up a bit or at least don't get worse, with some blips of activity. Up next is a resolution phase, in which symptoms go away or improve a bit.
3 comments:
Hi- It's good to get your update. I've been so busy these last couple of months and now summer is over- my boys have started back to school! Time flies!
Why does the doc think you are in the plateau phase? Mainly b/c things have not worsened?
Hi Kelly,
How is your health?
Plateau: My eyes are neither better nor worse. I get fewer eye pressure headaches and the puffiness is somewhat less. He said to expect the symptoms to kind of "stutter" better and worse.
Hi- I'm doing fine. I feel really good but I continue to have my own waxing and waning regarding my eyes. It is the only reminder that I even have graves disease. Well, that and the actual taking PTU. I'm in the middle of 'waxing' at the moment. Not too bad but it's present. And I always start to freak out when this happens. It is really amazing how I can tell when my eyes are fine and nothing is happening- no swelling, no dryness (or very little as I do wear contacts so dryness is something I have anyway on and off), no blips of pain or aches. But then when things are happening- I can tell right away. These episodes usually last for 4-6 weeks. I am coming up on 4 weeks so I pray it will subside again soon.
If I am remembering correctly without going back and rereading- you've been dealing with your eye symptoms since last October, there-abouts? just as I have. So I hope I hit the plateau phase soon too. I last saw my eye doc in July and he said everything looks good and then right after that is when I noticed the activity start up again. He is an MD but more of plastic surgeon who specializes in Graves cases. I see my endo in Oct. next so I will ask him if I should be seeing another type of eye doc. I definitely don't need plastic surgery at this point and hopefully I won't. And I cannot believe that it's coming up on a year since I've been diagnosed! I really hope the end is near as far as the eye part.
As always thank you for you info and updates!
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