Lizze gave me permission to post this here.  She recently went to her eye doctor and they discovered she has Macular holes, not just one, but several. Her current eye doctor said they were nothing to worry about however, research says otherwise. 

I wanted to share this with all of my readers as well.  As it turns out, this is almost always a big deal. 

Please keep her in your thoughts and prayers as she is very concerned and rightfully so.

My Macular Holes

by Lizze Gorski of mylifebeyondlabels.com

           I have an eye doctor here in town. I’ve never mentioned my eye doctor here on MLBL before so I won’t now. Although excluding my PCP, Dr. Norch, and her staff I’m slowly starting to distrust nearly every doctor and specialist I have here in town. As crazy as that makes me sound. And believe me, I know it makes me sound crazy.

Four years ago when I went to the eye doctor, she told me that I had “holes” in the back of my right eye. She just sort of brushed them off and didn’t even use the proper name for them, telling me to come back in three years unless my vision became worse.

So a few months ago I went back for my appointment, albeit a few months late, and learned that I still have a group of macular holes. This time I went armed with questions. (Keep in mind these answers all came from my eye doctor here in Canton, Ohio.)

What will I see if they get worse? It will look like someone is shaking a pepper-shaker in front of your right eye, only your right eye.

What should I do if they get worse? If you see the pepper-shaker effect, call the office for an emergency appointment.

What does worse mean? “Worse” means you’ve likely developed a retinal tear.

What is the treatment for “worse”? Emergency out-patient eye surgery.

How did I get the holes in the first place? There’s no way to know how you developed them; however, they typically occur in women 60 and over. 

Should I expect to develop them in my left eye? No, there’s no reason to believe that they will develop in your left eye. 

So, I left my eye appointment slightly terrified and paranoid with directions to call for an appointment and possible surgery if it ever appeared as if “someone was shaking a pepper-shaker over my right eye.”

It wasn’t until I began seeing the doctors at the Cleveland Clinic and slowly hearing and realizing that much of what I had believed was good medical care or care done in my best interests really wasn’t either of those things at all. Upon making these realizations, I decided I should pull my head out of the sand and look up what these “holes in my retina” really were. It wasn’t until last night that I even knew their name was macular holes. Prior to that, I honestly thought “holes in the retina” was the correct term because that’s what my eye doctor had called them. Nice, right?

Luckily, the Cleveland Clinic doesn’t require a referral for an ophthalmology appointment. I didn’t have to get prior authorization from my insurance company either. They also have a guy who actually specializes in macular holes! (Thank God!)

The best part is they were able to get me in on Wednesday, January 09th with the macular hole specialist. Yay.

I hope his plan is better than “Call me when the pepper-shaker busts open. Good day.”

(Photo credit: www.asrx.com)