June 2022
I get up and have pain around my eye. Pain when my eye moves, pain when it is touched, pain. I figure that I must have hit it, maybe in my sleep, and caused the pain/soreness. Only a few days later, I wake up to blurry vision. So, let's call and see the eye doctor.
The eye doctor comes in on his day off (bc my symptoms are enough to merit an emergency visit) and runs many tests. The diagnosis is retrobulbar neuritis with a referral to my family doctor and neurologist for further testing. The symptoms, diagnosis and with my age makes me a candidate for multiple sclerosis (MS).
I see my nurse practitioner who agrees with the eye doctor's assessment, schedules an MRI and refers me to a neurologist who gets me in extremely quickly (normal wait in 4-6 weeks, I was scheduled 2 weeks).
July 2022
After the MRI, I see the neurologist and she let me know that the MRI looks great, but she wants another set bc she really wants to figure out what is causing the vision issues. She is leaning toward clinical isolated syndrome, which could be the start to MS or just a single event that may never happen again.
She also sent me in for IV therapy to speed up the healing process for my vision. I am not sure if it really helped since my vision still fluctuates between how blurry it is depending on the day.
More MRI's that show only one spot of concern on the optic nerve.
August 2022
The neurologist now wants to call it relapsing remitting multiple sclerosis, but she can't officially call it that without more tests. So, let's have a lumbar puncture. And tells me treatment options to research.
September 2022
Lumbar puncture is just as I thought, uncomfortable and wouldn't recommend it to anyone. Now I am waiting for my next appointment with the neurologist in October.
While waiting I am researching treatment options (if MS) and trying as I might to figure out what else it could be. From my understanding, I do not meet the full criteria for MS, but I am also not a doctor.
I am trying to write down any and all questions that I may have to ask when I go back. Honestly, I wasn't prepared for the August appointment to go the way it did. It was shocking to hear the tentative MS diagnosis, even though I knew that was an option. So, I am trying to be more prepared.
My pain is gone, but I am still dealing with blurry vision. Some days it seems almost normal, other days my vision is just as blurry as the worst days.
This post is just to document and track what is going on with my health.
