badstar | Entries tagged with eye doctor

Okay, just got a callback from one of the administrators at the eye doctor, from how it sounds, she's going to take the complaint to the doctor in question and the clinical director immediately. This is good. She also said that she'd put a note in my file about allergic reactions to fluoricine in case I did ever come back to them.

She said that it was likely not the actual fluorescent component that caused the allergic reaction- apparently that usually causes a reaction that requires eye washing, and still lasts for quite a while, it doesn't go away in a short time like my reaction did, so it was likely something else in the drops that I'm allergic to, so I should keep a watch for similar reactions to other drops in the future. She also said that the allergic reaction was a bit more severe, probably because they use a higher concentration for LASIK exams than for your garden-variety doctor visit.

She also couldn't figure out why on earth he'd numbed my eyes to dilate them. They did the air puff test, not the eyeball-pokey test for glaucoma. (At LASIK plus, they numbed and dilated my eyes, but they actually did an eye-poke test. Should I ever need to have my eyes poked again, I think I will just request that it be done without numbing if at all possible. Something flat and blunt tapping at my eyeball doesn't really bother me that much, especially compared to the alternative.)

Short story, I can't get the surgery done.

So in essence, what should have happened is that I should have walked in, they should have looked at my prescription and said "Sorry, can't do it." That's what I was told in the end.

But no, I went in, I filled out the paperwork, I went through all their screenings and testings...including a numbing and dilation- the technician who did everything told me very specifically that they determine eligibility for procedure before getting on to the dilation part.

so there was all kinds of flower speech bout how unbelievably healthy my eyes are for the severity of my vision deficiency. and then that LASIK wasn't the right procedure for me, but PRK is what I'm best suited for- it's a similar procedure, laser only yada yada and they have a few different lasers for the procedure and the doctor would come and fetch me in a minute to discuss the different laser options and which one they would actually use if I had the PRK done.

Doctor comes, doctor fetches me and sits me down and immediately informs me that they would not work on a patient with the severity of prescription that I have- my prescription is around a -12, they stop at -10.

They could do it, and would likely correct it to 20/20, the problem is that I would eventually need to have it done again due to natural deterioration (which would be included in their lifetime guarantee)...but the amount of tissue they'd need to remove from my corneas would leave them unable to do any further work in the future- and again, I would definitely eventually need it.

Well...I'm glad that the doctor was honest with me in letting me know that there was no question I'd eventually need the procedure again. And I'm glad that they weren't willing to do it now and leave me screwed in the future- no doubt there are less honest doctors who would have done it anyway.

But I am thoroughly pissed with the technician who should have took one look at my prescription and told me I was done there. I would have been disappointed, but not in the least bit surprised. But I went through all the tests, I had my eyes numbed and dilated, and was told that I would be able to have my vision corrected...and then...sorry, we won't touch you.

What did irritate me about the doctor was when she suggested that I go to another doctor (for a minute, I thought she was going to say "but this doctor will still do the procedure if you want!")...this doctor specializes in something called an implanted lens which apparently they recommend to a lot of people who can't have the laser correction.

Basically, they implant an artificial lens behind your cornea. Oh, joy. The thought was terrifying, I was sitting there, gripping the arm of the chair, stammering, and her response was "Don't worry about cost, I'm sure they also have financing!" (She was rather scarily chipper)

I managed to get out that I hadn't even got as far as thinking about cost, it was the idea of having something stuck into my eye.

"Oh, it's almost identical to cataract surgery!" she says.

"Uh, I don't know a thing about cataract surgery." So, she explains and I'm just like "Uh...I dunno, I'll have to really think about that." and I got up and left.

At this point, I'm just going to leave it right there. Implanted lens is a much newer procedure, and really not something I want to even think about let alone have done.

The other thing that happened that really pisses me off...I now know that I need to file a complaint about the doctor over at Katzen- he wasn't just an ass, he completely brushed off what was actually an allergic reaction.

So I had my eyes numbed- I have to say this is partially my fault because I missed it when the technician said that she was going to use a numbing drop until she was putting them in my eyes, and the same thing happened as before- I immediately felt like I was smacked in the head with a blunt object, and then the sinus pressure settled in, and my face got very red. and I suddenly felt like a dumbass.

This all happened the last time too- though, the red face and headache, I thought was a reaction to me being so mad at the doctor for his attitude, that it exacerbated the actual reaction. Guess not. Well apparently this time i got really pale for a minute there- she made me sit back in the chair with an ice pack on my neck for a little while, and I started to get dizzy this time- that didn't happen last time. Thankfully, the reaction passed quickly, I was okay in about ten or fifteen minutes.

So, I now know that I'm allergic to fluoricine which is particularly distinctive because it's a rather disturbing neon yellow color.

So if anyone ever has their eyes numbed and has a reaction like that...you know what it is.

But anyway, I had an allergic reaction, and the doctor told me that it was all in my head because I never would have known he had given me numbing drops if he hadn't told me- never mind that I said that something was wrong before he told me they were numbing drops. So...IF I ever go back to Katzen (they're still supposed to be one of the better ones in the city), I'm going to have to make sure that I don't see him. Dr. Williams I think was his name...

I tried to call them today, but they were closed by the time I called. So...Monday. First thing. But I wanted to try right away- I wanted them to get the brunt of my ire.

Well, at least I know now.

I've got the super-special two-hour-long eye doctor appointment in Annapolis on Friday with the industrial-strength eye dilation and all that jazz to be sure I'm good for LASIK surgery.

I'm so not looking forward to it.

But I am excited about the possibility of being able to see without glasses. Though, after almost 22 years...it will be weird not to wear them (dammit, and I just spent $200 on them two months ago!)

I really like these frames...I was telling my mom that I'd be half tempted to get some non-prescription lenses made for them and wear them on occasion anyway.

Okay...so yesterday I finally talked to someone at Katzen about scheduling an evaluation for LASIK. I called Wednesday, never got to talk to anyone. They called me back yesterday morning, I missed the call. I called back, waited on hold forever til I was flipped over to their voice mail. Left a message asking them to call me back *in the afternoon* and started to fall asleep. Lo and behold, they called me 20 minutes later, which annoyed me but I talked to one of their representatives who was just so disturbingly perky I wanted to reach through the phone and shake her.

You know, I always thought LASIK was done using only lasers. Apparently I was wrong. They have LASIK and bladeless LASIK- in the regular old LASIK, they use a blade to cutt a flap in your cornea and then the laser to reshape it. With bladeless, well, obviously, it's a laser for both.

Alright, I've heard all sorts of quoted prices for LASIK, but their prices start at $2700 for the most basic, blade-cut proceedure, and run up to nearly $5000. Before this, I think the highest I'd heard was in the neighborhood of $2000, maybe slightly more, ad as far as I know, that was for a bladeless proceedure.

Now these are my freakin' eyes I'm talking about, and I'm not gonna go somewhere cheap just because. The possibility of losing my vision is one of my secret fears that, despite the strength of my prescription, I don't really have much cause to think about. But two of my grandparents have gone blind or nearly so (though both were diabetic, Nanny (my mom's mom) was a heavy alcoholic. My grandfather I suspect was a functional alcoholic. Complicated diabetes does tend to up that possibility strongly, so I don't know if it was just that or if either would have gone blind otherwise and I am neither alcoholic nor diabetic.)

But on the other hand, I have to wonder why on earth Katzen's pricing starts $700 above the highest that I've heard in other places. What makes them so special?

Anyway, I remembered talking to Deirdre sometime ago about this, she had the proceedure done at LASIK plus down in Annapolis, though it was several years ago. But at the time she only paid something like $400 per eye. (Special promotion at the time)

What interests me there wasn't the price- I'm not expecting to find any such pricing like that at this point in time- but the fact that they did such a good job that sometime later on, an opthamologist performing an exam had no idea that she's had it done until she told her. Apparently there's usually a bit of scarring on the cornea, but she had none. And this was a bladeless procedure. Plus they offer free lifetime re-dos if needed in all but the most extreme cases, as long as you get your eyes checked by them every (um...certain amount of time, not sure) and they have locations all over the country. Katzen charges $250 per eye for re-do's and they're only here in Baltimore. Plus, I don't know anyone who's ever been to Katzen for LASIK.

So I was talking to Deirdre this evening, she offered to give me a ride down to the office in Annapolis if I made an appointment for an evaluation down there, and would take me down if I had the surgery done too.

So I was just kicking around on their website, and decided to try calling on a lark- didn't expect them to be open at this point, but they were. I made an appointment and talked about financing...they finance, as long as you make a down payment of at least $300. Guess once I find out how much it will actually cost me, I'll ask Leann to run some numbers on how much I want to take out of my paycheck and put into flexible spending, and make as big a down payment on that as I can.

So my evaluation appointment is on Friday the 29th.

Suddenly, I'm nervous.

Went to the eye doctor today. My gawds...I don't think I've ever had such an unpleasant eye doctor visit.

First of all, it took nearly three hours...and most of that was sitting in one of two rooms waiting. maybe I'm just used to much smaller practices than this but I've never had three different people deal with different parts of the appointment. Prior to this, it's all been just the doctor.

Anyway, aside form the hurry up and wait, the initial checking of vision and asking of a few background questions went pretty normally. The doctor came in, talked for a few minutes then got down to eye dilation business. Explained that he would give me two drops in each eye. That's a little different form what I'm used to (one drop in each) but whatever. He puts the first drops in and I immediately feel like I've been hit in the forehead- I mean, if I didn't know better, I'd swear I was hit by a board or something similarly large and flat, and my eyes started to feel strange. I commented about that because I'd never had such a sensation before and the doctor kinda brushed it off which seemed odd to me. I also commented something about hoping that the eye drops wear off faster than I remember them being before, to which he commented that they should wear off in about two and a half hours instead of four to six. He also said something about how the first drops were numbing drops, and then it made sense that my eyes felt weird (I've had my eyes numbed once before and have always hoped that I would never have to experience that again.), and I told him that I wish he had let me know that he was going to do that before...to which he started going on about how he had to use them otherwise the dilation drops would cause so much pain I wouldn't be able to open my eyes for twenty minutes or more, that they would cause a spasm and how I'd obviously known what it felt like if I'd ever had my eyes dilated before and I shouldn't have to have a warning- no, the eye dilations I've had have all involved one drop in each eye, and have NEVER made me feel like I had just been hit by a blunt object in the forehead.

He gave me the second drops, saying that he'd be back in 10-15 minutes and left me in the room. In that time, I started to feel worse. Now I've never had a sinus headache before, but what followed, I have to guess felt like a severe sinus headache...a lot of pain and pressure above and below my eyes and around my nose and I just wanted to cry, it hurt that much. When he came back in, I let him know what happened and his reaction was pretty much "Well, you'd never know that I had put numbing drops in if I hadn't told you." Uhhh...excuse me? Didn't I SAY that my eyes felt strange and that I felt like I had been hit in the head as soon as the first drops went in, BEFORE he had said that they were numbing drops? I might not have realized at the moment that they were numbing drops, but I knew something was weird. He then commented that the light sensitivity was normal...light sensitivity? The light wasn't bothering me at ALL and I told him as much. He said he'd make a note in my file for future reference but that it didn't change anything *sigh*

When all was said and done, he said that my retinas looked to be in perfect shape, which isn't often the case for someone as severely nearsighted as I am. This was a relief to hear since one of those little fears in the back of my mind is torn retinas- my mom had torn retinas twice- the first time, she was younger than I am now, and the second time she was either as old as I am now or just a little older.

After that, I went out to iron out the details of new glasses. I just LOVE it how picking out new glasses always happens when your vision is all messed up due to pupil dilation. My vision is bad enough that trying on frames with demo lenses when things are normal is kinda dicey, add dilated pupils to the mix and focus and clarity are all weird...uhg.

I ended up going above my allotted frame cost, so I have to pay the difference but all of the frames within my covered cost were either ugly as hell or too small for my face. I wound up with a pair of purple frames that look black from a distance (I've worn metal frames for years, I think the last colored frames I've had were navy blue in high school.) in the wide, narrow rectangular shape that there's a lot of lately. I never would have thought that that shape could look good on my face, but they actually seemed to look pretty decent. I'm also getting high-index lenses plus the fact that the lenses are much smaller than what I usually have, I'm not going to have the really thick lenses anymore. This makes me happy. I'm going to look into getting contacts probably shortly after Christmas. I got kinda annoyed with the eyewear specialist- every time I tried a new frame on, she would comment about how that shape is so in style. After a few of these, I finally said "Look, I honestly could care less about them being in style, I just want them to look decent on my face." Even still, she voiced enthusiastic approval of the purple frames when I decided on them because they look nice and fit my nose just so, and they're so in style right now, whereas the sort of frames I've been wearing aren't anymore. It was enough to make a little piece of me want to put them back and get a pair of frames more like I have now...but I would have to live with them and quite frankly, I like the new ones. I'll get them in about two weeks.

Oh...and they had a few frames from a brand called Apollo Eyeware. Made my brain hurt once the initial surprise of seeing "Apollo" on the demo lens decals wore off. And they were ugly...even if they weren't ugly, I don't think I would have tried any of them on, much less picked them out, the whole idea was just far too cheesy.

After the eye doctor, I wandered around the harbor a bit, then went to Barnes and Noble. Got a copy of The Mabinogion, and finally have The Double Life Of Veronique on DVD. Woohoo!

It's rather tragic that Krysztoff Kieslowski died and he only ever got to make two movies with Irene Jacob...both Red and The Double Life Of Veronique are such great movies. I think Red is my favorite of the Blue White Red trilogy and The Double Life Of Veronique was just...wow...

This brings my DVD collection to a whopping thirty. :-)

Currently waiting for a phone call from my mom...I might try to get ahold of her one more time because I want to go to sleep before too long. Planning to go to Towson tomorrow and obtain a new backpack...I miss having a backpack. Also need to grab coffee at Trader Joe's.