Opthamologist - Multiple Sclerosis Message Board

april1848 · 06-23-2008, 06:10 PM

Hey buddies,

I made an appt for next week to see an opthamologist. First of all, I have an infected, blocked tear duct that I want him to look at. Antibiotics are working to a certain extent, but it's still blocked, until I get surgery. I also thought I'd bring up the MS thing so he can check out my optic nerve. How do they do that?

I haven't had any symptoms of ON except for two days in February, where my eyes were blurry and I had a tiny blind spot. It went away as quickly as it appeared. I just thought that since I have to see one anyway, I might as well kill two birds with one stone. I just have no idea how they look at your optic nerve! Next week I'll be starting all over on a $3000.00 deductible, so I hope it's not an MRI!!

Nenu · 06-23-2008, 07:12 PM

Blocked tear duct does not sound pleasant April. Hoping this guy can be of assistance with that, as well as your other questions.

purple2067 · 06-23-2008, 07:28 PM

Yeah, blocked tear ducts can be painful. You should check out the eye & vision board about that. Anyway, I have got MS and my Ophthalmologist was the one who diagnosed me. In addition to several other symptoms surfacing (numbness in my face, loss of taste on one side of my mouth, speech slurring, tripping, to name a few) I had Optic Neuritis. I woke up one day and had pain behind my eyeball and I couldn't see very clearly. My ophthalmologist got me in immediately and gave me a visual field test. A visual field test checks your peripheral vision. You put your head in the machine and you look at a fixed point. Then a bunch of tiny lights start flashing around you and you click every time you see a light. The machine makes a graph for the doctor that tells him the location of all of the lights that you missed. The location of those missed lights would be where you are losing your peripheral vision due to the ON.

Do you have a diagnosis of MS or are you just speculating? Optic Neuritis usually lasts for much longer than two days (mine lasted for a month, and that was a mild case). I would tell the ophthalmologist about the blurriness and let him do some testing and make a proper diagnosis. It could just be some floaters or else something minor.

Canadian gal · 06-23-2008, 07:40 PM

I have heard of eye doctors using a MRI, CAT, VEP/VER (to check the speed of nerve transmissions down the optic nerve), and opthalmoscope on the back of the eye (so long as the inflammation is not further back along the optic nerve), to test for ON.

However, I would think ON would be most obvious, by any testing method, while it is inflammed and we are experiencing symptoms. I'm not sure how much damage they can pick up on if it is not active.

They can probably give an educated guess as to whether what you experienced previously was ON, but I'm not convinced they could confirm that at this point in time though.

Cherie

Nenu · 06-23-2008, 07:54 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by purple2067

In addition to several other symptoms surfacing (numbness in my face, loss of taste on one side of my mouth, speech slurring, tripping, to name a few)

Ugh. Facial numbness for me on the right side, loss of taste... plus the ever present burning mouth.

Fortunately drugs are helping, but they only can help so much!