Detached Retina - Time is Critical

Many people may have family members who have experienced a detached retina. If it's an older family member, they make think there is nothing that can be done, but that is no longer true. Time is of the essence in acting however, if you want to save your eyesight, and calling your regular eye doctor or family doctor could dangerously slow or completely impede the chance of your being able to continue to see.

I awoke one morning with an odd dark green spot in the lower left hand corner of my vision in my right eye. I blinked, rubbed, put a warm wash cloth in my eye, no changes. I called my eye doctor, it's what most people would do, right?

Unfortunately, what many people do not realize is that there are many very common medications that can cause similiar oddities in vision, including common arthritis and blood pressure meds. If you are on these meds, your eye doctor will refer to your family doctor to be checked out by them first, since they are the prescribing physician. This is protocol, and a stupid one, because your family doctor will tell you "we don't handle eyes, see your eye doctor." Precious time will be lost going back and forth on the phone between the two, meanwhile, that odd green spot (it can also be red or black) will slowly be expanding, and time running out.

I was fortunate in that even though I'm on a medication that can cause a similiar vision issue (and discontinuing the med will make it go away) I refused to be blown off by the doctors. With a family history of dectached retina's, I knew that this was more than just my arthritis meds re-aligning the red and green cones in my eyes, it wouldn't go away in a week or two if i stopped the medication.

I looked thorugh the phone book for the nearest eye specialist/surgeon and went straight to their office, I didn't even call and ask for an appointment. I told the girl what was happening, my family history, and that my doctor and regular eye doctor were giving me the run around. There was no sense in my going blind when a 15 minute exam by a specialist could determine what the real issue was.