In the past few years as I've dealt with various medical issues, I have come to better respect medical advice from professionals. However, I hadn't gotten out of the habit of sleeping with my contacts in. I even had one eye doctor tell me I was going to get ulcers on my cornea if I kept it up. Boy, did that give me a good laugh!
Well, now it seems that these years of thinking I am smarter than doctors has really come back to bite me. In May, I got an eye infection (considering my eye care history, you will understand when I say that I get eye infections all the time... and they're usually no big deal). I went to the doctor and got the standard eye drops and was told to use them for 7 days. I was pretty good and used them for 6 days, but then I wanted to wear my contacts on the 7th day, so I thought, "what difference is one day going to make?" Apparently it makes a difference. A few days later, the infection came back.
Not wanting to confess to my doctor that I didn't follow his instructions, I just took my contacts out and used the drops for the next 7 days. The infection cleared up and I was fine. Problem solved, right? Wrong. A few weeks went by and my eye started bothering me again. I took my contacts out and waited for the signs of infection to show up. They didn't. Instead, I just had redness, irritation, and an unusual sensitivity to light.
(Dramatization)
This lasted a couple of days then went away. I put my contacts back in and went on with life. A couple more weeks passed and it happened again, only a little worse this time. I figured that since it cleared up on its own the last time, it would again. I was right. But the problem kept coming back, each time getting a little more painful. Finally, I decided I had had enough and that I needed to get this checked out. The problem was that these flare-ups usually were happening on weekends, which makes seeing a doctor more complicated. I ended up going to an Urgent Care Clinic.
Enter Dr. Doofus (real name withheld). This doctor really embodies all the reasons why I used to think I was smarter than doctors. In his defense, he is not an eye doctor, and I should have known better than to trust a doctor who works Saturday afternoons at an urgent care clinic. Regardless, I was there and he asked a bunch of questions and looked stuff up on his computer. He decided I was having migraines. He put me on oxygen for 10 minutes and gave me a migraine pill to see if the symptoms would subside while I was in the office.
While we waited for those things to work their magic, I asked if he was going to look at my eye. He put numbing drops in it and took a look with an uncomfortably bright light (considering that I couldn't even stand to have the lights on in our house at this time). He declared that there appeared to be nothing wrong with my eye and asked how I was feeling. I said, "Fine. Do you think it was the numbing drops that did it?" He exclaimed, "CRAP! I ruined our experiment." Yes, those were his actual words. He sent me home with a recommendation that I see an ophthalmologist if it continued to bother me.
And so the saga continued...
This past weekend, on Saturday (of course), my eye started bothering me again. By Saturday night, I couldn't even stand watching The Incredible Hulk because (among other reasons) each flash of light sent pain shooting across my forehead. Sunday was worse. Monday morning, I started calling ophthalmologists. I finally found one who could see me on Tuesday afternoon.
This doctor (let's call him Dr. Deadpan) didn't talk much, but seemed much more knowledgeable than Dr. Doofus. He took a look at the eye and gave me his diagnosis: nummular keratitis. Well, either that or a recovering ulcer. Either would be treated the same way, so he sent me home with some antibiotic/steroid drops and told me to come back on Thursday.
He checked it again this morning and said it is improving, but I have to go back on Monday. When I asked Dr. Deadpan if this problem was going to go away, he replied, "with treatment." Sorry, Dr. Deadpan, but any Doofus could've told me that. Well... maybe not.
4 comments:
I never slept with my contacts, but would wear them way too long and would get eye infections all the time. Then finally in January I got LASIK. Best decision ever.
You probably don't think you can afford it, as we thought the same thing, but honestly I would look into it if I were you.
Ah, eye infections. Even I myself am no stranger to them. I can't count how many times I've gone to the ophthalmologist for eye conditions ranging from corneal lesions (while on my mission in Venezuela, where I was told to put a mixture of eye drops and a broken up tylenol into my eye every hour for three days) to "eye floaters" (where I was told there was no cure), to just plain allergies.
So needless to say, I feel your pain. But screw them if they want me to put a new pair in every two weeks!
Today I am thankful for 20/20 vision and stateside missions.
Let me know if your migranes go away!!
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