In July I was diagnosed with macular edema. It's a rare side effect of RP. Macular edema was causing my remaining central vision to get blurry. It's like having RP and macular degeneration at the same time. From a personal standpoint it made my vision much more sensitive to bright lights and unpredictable.
My doctor talked to me about the standard treatment - a shot of cortisone to the back of the eye. The side effects of this treatment include a 30% chance of developing glaucoma. So I have an eye disease, RP, that causes blindness. RP has caused a condition, macular edema, which can cause blindness. Macular edema has a treatment which can cause glaucoma, which can cause blindness. Also, blindness.
So we decided not to do the shot just yet. Instead we started an off label treatment; cortisone eye drops. The drops hurt a lot and I wasn't great at taking them because of all the travel I've been up to. Fast forward two months and my vision has improved. I'm not as sensitive to bright lights and I've regained a line of acuity on the eye chart. Great news. So I'm going to do another two month round of the painfully suckers. I hope we can wipe macular edema out this time.
So I'm left with something I almost never get. Good news from the eye doctor.
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