I decided to take
yanub's advice and just check with my opthalmologist about the visual experiences during my flight...
I spoke with him over the phone this morning, and he said he had no idea what would cause what I described but said that because the experience did not persist, there should be no risk or need to investigate further. At this point, I am just resigning to trusting his judgement...but it does bother me a little bit that most sites speaks of increased floaters as a symptom of a possible retinal detachment and he didn't even mention it. The other thing that bothers me, is the fact that even though he outright admits to not knowing what could have caused the streaking, he acts as if tho it does not need further investigation. Hmmm... I guess I am just paranoid due to doctors having missed the MFS diagnosis for so long and all the "Unknown" conditions I have to contend with in my body. Things like the palinopsia that is miraculously cured by the use of anti-epilepsy pills scares me. I still don't know what is causing it, the doctors don't know what is causing it but heck, seeing as the pills are making a difference...case closed according to them. I don't know, something about that just makes me very nervous. It feels like I am walking a tight rope between Paranoia and Irresponsibility. Some people might say I am being paranoid and over sensitive, yet others would say that it would be irresponsible to just ignore it...
In my view though, I am really not keen on another ghost hunt... It just demoralises me when medical professionals finds nothing wrong, yet there is definately something abnormal happening. Initially, with the palinopsia, I had gone through a barrage of tests, including expensive Brain-MRI's and EEG's just to end up with no answers and having pills shoved down my throught in a ditch effort to get rid of the symptoms ... the problem is still not identified and/or treated,
Uncertainty, is the biggest pain in my life. I hate uncertainty... but, what can you do. Doctors are only humans and they don't always have all the answers and it is far from a life-threatening situation, just a very real irretation.
I'm glad you checked with your opthamologist. Do you have a regular appointment scheduled with him for some time in the next six months? If so, and the symptoms don't come back, then that will probably be fine. But if not, go ahead and make one. If he doesn't find anything wrong upon visual inspection, you will feel relieved. And if he does find an early indication of trouble, then you can maybe do something to impending detachment.
ReplyDeleteI am with you on not holding out hope that doctors will be able to figure out the why. I'm pretty much just happy if they will actually address the symptoms I think are important instead of whatever the latest medical fad is.
I see this type of doctoring like an irresponsible electrician. You call him in because there is a problem: He finds a frayed wire in the wall.
ReplyDeleteNow he has two choices. He can skip lunch, cancel the next few appointments and do the job properly; trace the wire to find where it goes and what it effects, then turn off the power and yank/replace the wire. Big job, but it totally fixes the problem.
Or he can take five minutes, wrap some electrical tape around the wire, charge you $150 and eff off for a nice lunch. You will probably be none the wiser.
...until your house burns down two years later, of course.
So I don't see this as paranoia. I see it as good-old-fashioned shoddy workmanship on the part of the doctor.
OSM
It sounds a bit like elusive problems in a car's cooling system - they take forever to trace, and are very frustrating. Something is definitely wrong, but fixing it can be an issue.
ReplyDeleteHa! We have so many metaphors for difficult medical problems.
Also, it is hard to know whether you are being paranoid, sensible, or irresponsible without medical knowledge. I think that I have had my fair share of paranoia, and have now moved on to irresponsibility, but I hope that I am just being sensible. Just keep an eye on things. As it were ;-)
Yanub: Thanks, I have a 6 monthly in a couple of weeks, so I am going to press him to check for tears or other signs.
ReplyDeleteOSM: I like the analogy :D. An that is exactly how I feel... I don't know what my wiring is looking like, so I don't know wether I might "catch fire" at some point. Sure, it might all be neat and tidy...but what if it isnt. For a "normal" human being, that WOULD be paranoia ... but for someone with an HCTD, that's a luxury that we can't afford. There is so much that gets controlled by the FBN gene that one can't possibly predict everything that might go wrong, yet one can't spend sleepless nights worrying about it either... Catch 22 ...
Abi: Once again, I love the Analogy/Metaphor :D. Hehe...if my left eye is keeping an eye on my right eye which is keeping an eye on my left eye...sounds like that old song! "Looking at you looking at me looking back at you...?" something like that... heh I can hear the song, just can't remember the proper lyrics... * UPLOADS MIND TO BLOGGER * - ERROR 402 LOST YOUR MIND -