I only have eyes for you!

Fair warning, this is not a gaming post (Boooo) but it is a rant (YEA!)

For the last week I've had an eye problem, not anything too major, but some how I managed to scratch it pretty good. Now, the first thing I did, when I realized I had an issue was to go see my ophthalmologist. Now for those not in the know an Ophthalmologist is a eye doctor that specializes in Ophthalmology, deals with the medical treatment of the eye and its diseases, not one who check your vision and prescribes glasses. That is an Optician.

I see (I love that pun) an Ophthalmologist once or twice a year because I have diabetes and during the course of that disease serious eye problems like glaucoma and such can occur, which may result in vision loss if I don't keep it in check. The regularity at which I visit the specialist depends on how well I am controlling my diabetes. To date, I've only had to see him once a year, yea me.

Now that the eye doctor education is over I will continue with my story.

So, decide to go see my eye specialist, whom I have been visiting for about 6 or so years now. I trust him and he knows me pretty good I would suspect. His diagnosis is that I have a small scratch on the bottom of my eye and that it requires some antibiotic and that if it doesn't get better in 48 hours a second visit will be required. Of course this all happens 72 hours before I'm suppose to head out of town for a week on business.

Two days later, my eye started to feel much better. I continued with the drops but didn't go see the doctor on account of the fact that I was out of town at the time and my eye was feeling, well... much better. Then, on the third day after the visit, I subjected my eye to some chemical haze and fog, which was being used at an event I was working. Course, when I say chemical haze and fog, I'm not talking about recreational drugs, I'm talking about foggers and hazers similar to those used at rock shows to produce stage effects. These things cause a smoke like fog in the air so laser and light shows will look awesome. This effect, however, can cause some serious eye irratation. Now my eye not only starts to hurt, but it feels like someone is shoving and ice pick into it.

So now my eye is hurting again, irritated and red. The best way to fix this is to rest my eye and continue to use the antibiotic drops. However, I can't rest because the event I'm at doesn't get done till 1am and we are back at the venue striking the equipment at 8am in the morning. So the much needed rest will have to wait and my eye will stay irritated for another 2 days.

Once I get the rest I need, my eye starts to feel much better, again. This lasts for a 2 days till I have to limit my sleep once again, because on the next job we have to do, the client decides they want to rehearse at 5:30 am two days in a row and therefore, no 8 hours of sleep for me and my sad little eye. My eye feels okay during the day hours but the morning and evenings are a huge problem for my scratched eye, because of the lack of sleep and rest.

I arrived back home this past Tuesday and crashed as soon as I was able too. Upon waking up Wednesday morning, I wasn't unable to keep my eye open, any little bit of light annoyed it immensely and the pain was pretty bad. I called my ophthalmologist and luckily was able to get an appointment that morning. He reexamined the eye, notating that it was a scratch, prescribed a different antibiotic and told me I needed to rest the eye. I took the day off, layed on the couch and napped and by yesterday evening I was feeling much better. As a matter of fact, it felt great today as well. I just had a follow-up visit with a different doctor, since mine wasn't going to be in the office which I thought was OK, since all he had to do was see if it was improving or not improving and I would be good to go.

My luck is never that good.

This new doctor, whom I've never seen nor met, suggested that my problem wasnt' a scratched eye at all, but ulcers caused by ocular rosacea. He then proceeds to prescribe two more eye drops, besides the antibiotics I'm already on, hands me a pamphlet where he has writtem Ocular surface disease and ocular rosacea written on it, all the while telling me to look them up on the web so I'll have a better understanding of my condition and sends me on my way. Now this is a lot to take in. Apparently, the single scratch I had yesterday and for past week has over night turned into two ulcers. I questioned him about how this happened in less than 24hrs and he said that my doctor apparently felt that it might have been this all along, course I don't know why he wouldn't have mentioned it to me yesterday when I asked him about the scratch and what we would have to do if it wasn't healing.

Talk about someone hit with a brick. I was blind sided. I've got my reqular doctor telling me its a scratch and this new doctor, who I didn't know from Adam telling me I have some kind of surface disease on my eye. And the more questions I ask the less information I'm getting from this new doctor. Apparently, my regular doctor had discussed my case with this new doctor which is why he confirmed the diagnosis was something else. Now I have to apply two new eye drops, one of them I have to use, well, forever because now, over night, I have this new condition.

I understand now why doctors get sued. So, now that I'm stunned. I start the drive home. I called the wife, who was just as confused as me, but had some very good advise, "Don't do anything till you talk to YOUR doctor." So, I got her to call the eye care place. They told her a P.A would call me, which she did. We talked, I explained how I wasn't comfortable with this new doctors diagnoses and how I needed to talk to MY doctor. She said she would call him and see what he said. She called me back and by the tone of her voice, I could tell that MY doctor didn't think much of the new diagnosis. Although, he didn't tell her to tell me it was BULL SHIT, I could tell that he didn't think I had ulcers or that I needed all those drops.

Monday, I'll be making an appointment to see MY doctor. As long as my eye is getting better, which it is, I don't see the need to do anything about this dry eye conspiracy. I did discover that like all things, a second opinion isn't always what its cracked up to be. The power to get the right answers is always with the people themselves. Doctors work for you. Don't let them bully you if you feel they don't know what they are doing. Sure, at some point you have to pick a side, but make sure you feel confident in the people your asking that opinion of.

Oh, by the way, the second doctor, Mr. Ocular Rocacea, I knew there was something wrong with him the minute he walked in the room. No sane man would sport a Mr. Brady perm.