Time is really flying by! I just finished my rotations through vision therapy and teen clinic, and now I'll be in optical and central testing instead. Whew. Every patient is a whole new adventure. Each patient experience teaches me something new, and today was a great example.
A 48-year-old man come in complaining that his vision was blurry in his left eye. He mentioned that 2 weeks ago it had been mildly painful, and that when he took out his contact lens, he found a small hair on it. I took a look at the front of his eye and everything looked great. My staff doctor came in to double check his eye and also took a quick look inside his eye. That was the game changer. He had a hemi-retinal vein occlusion which is basically a type of stroke to the eye. One of his veins was blocked so blood was pooling in his retina. While resolving his visual complaints is important, what's more important at this point is that he sees his regular doctor to control his high blood pressure to prevent a stroke to the brain. In addition, he's also going to be visiting with a retinal specialist.
Speaking of retinal specialists, I helped another patient that needed to see one. She was a 15-year-old girl who came in to get new glasses. I thought to myself, "Maybe this will be a routine exam." That thought vanished about 2 minutes later as I was checking her eye muscles. She was seeing double only when she looked down and left. A few minutes later, I found out that her right eye was significantly higher than her left and it hadn't been like that 2 years before at her last eye exam. With some more questioning, I found out that she had recently been hit in the left eye while playing basketball. Ah ha. After we dilated her, we looked around in her retina and saw an unusual dark line on her retina. She too received a referral to a retinal specialist just to make sure something more serious wasn't going on.
Other conditions that I've seen in the last few weeks include: white without pressure, severe glaucoma, dense anterior subcapsular cataracts, copper wiring, and macular pigment changes in a teenager. Never a dull moment. Always a lot to learn. I feel like I'm on the fast track to see retinal conditions. That's one of the reasons I chose SCO in the first place. I didn't want to just learn about eye conditions, I wanted to see them. SCO is not only meeting my expectations in that area, but exceeding them....and I'm only 2 months into clinic.