Doctor puts everything down to MS.....

Everyday living
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UGH why is it when you have a life long illness everything that you experience is down to that by the doctors.

I suffer with Optical Neuritis. when i have a flare of this it can make my eye ball painful and also gives me blurred vision, and other odd things. However, for months now I have been back and forth with the doctor mentioning the irritated pain in my eye. Oh its your MS blah blah blah. Not once did she look in my eye but kept saying you need to discuss with MS nurse etc.

Now i saw MS nurse and i told her it wasn’t my MS as i know the difference now between an ON attack. Its different that is pain hurting pain this was like you have something in it irritating pain. Not even this person checked my eye.

I used several bottles of optrex thinking perhaps it was dry eye. Nope made no difference.

It got so bad i found it harder and harder to work on my computer as every time i moved my eye ball it felt like a red hot poker. I knew it wasn’t my MS, and finally in desperation i thought i would see the optician just to make sure. I explained to her what had been going on. i said my eyesight was fine, i know my ON signs but this is different its starting to drive me nuts and i can barely see the computer screen as every time i blink it hurts which it wouldn’t do with ON.

Well first off she checked for pressure which was perfect.

Then she used some other gadget magnifier i think. She said oh well that was easy to sort out you poor thing no wonder why you have been in pain you have 3 ingrowing eyelashes scratching your eyeball One is enough but 3 is 2 too many she said. She was almost laughing and by then so was I with relief.

It took seconds with special tweezer to pluck the 3 offending lashes out.

Result. INSTANT relief from pain and irritation. The relief was just amazing. Months and months of it, being blamed on my MS, i knew it wasn’t down to that as i know the pain is totally different. I came out of her office almost singing and could have hugged her we went and bought her some flowers as she actually took me seriously. I couldn’t believe the difference it was like just mind blowing. I hadn’t realised just how much pain them darn things were causing me. I have to come back in six weeks as they can regrow back. I hope not. She said although common if left they can cause problems like ulcers and the inside of my lid was showing signs it wasn’t happy. The last few days have been great. I feel in a better mood, not so tired as it was getting harder and harder to want to read anything.

I was bad tempered because of this constant silly pain.

Doctors need to stop being so lazy really and look outside the box. Now i can write this without wanting to scream. You wait until i see her again. I am not happy. The fact she never even bothered to check my eye was unforgivable as she would have seen what was happening.

Its not always the MS.

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My MS clinic have always emphasised NOT to blame everything on the MS. It’s an easy cop out for GP’s to do this which is frustrating and could in fact be dangerous. I’ve had a constant dull dragging ache in my right leg for about 4 weeks now, particularly in my calf, which gets so painful sometimes that I just don’t know what to do, it also includes a tingling, pins & needles sensation in my right foot. I’ll be ringing my GP tomorrow, but I know that the first thing they will say is “muscle tightness due to the MS”, but I know that this pain is nothing like I usually get with the MS. My father had a blood clot in his calf last year and his symptoms are pretty similar to what I’m experiencing at the moment, in fact the only bit of relief comes is if lay down and I raise my leg above my body, which is something the ambulance guys did when they took my father into hospital ! I appreciate that having MS can muddy the water when making a diagnosis for a “new” symptom that has cropped up, but GP’s need to put the MS to one side sometimes and go in with a fresh set of eye’s when a patient says this is new or different, after all we know our own bodies.

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Yes we know our own bodies.

I hope it isnt anything serious for you hun.

My friend her pain in her shoulder was MS and it turned out to be gallbladder, go figure. x

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That’s something not only the doctors need to take note of, but us as well. Yes, we know our own bodies,but MS is such a strange bugger, it can come out with random problems all the time.

So, when there’s something new, I tend to put it down to MS as well.

We should all remember, bodies are complicated systems of almost magical engineering and bits can fall off / go wrong / get rusty all on their own. It’s not always caused by MS.

I’m glad your eye was ‘cured’, CC, it only takes something relatively small like that to make daily life difficult. It must have felt like you’d been given a brand new eye when the pesky eyelashes were removed. I hope it doesn’t come back.

Sue

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Like jactac, my GP says, don’t blame everything on the MS!! If anything is up with your eyes, first port of call - opticians. They have all the equipment that GP’s don’t and can rule out many things before you contact the MS nurse.

My GP says. “its your age”… which frankly nakes me want to deck him.!