Rheumatoid Arthritis Support Group
Rheumatoid arthritis is a chronic, inflammatory, multisystem, autoimmune disorder. It is a disabling and painful condition which can lead to substantial loss of mobility due to pain and joint destruction. The disease is also systemic in that it often also affects many extra-articular tissues throughout the body including the skin, blood vessels, heart, lungs, and...
I finally got to the optometrist this week. Got chewed out a bit, as it had been almost three years since my last visit. I was busy, OK? Appointment fatigue, where I just couldn't make and keep one single more stinkin' medical appointment.
He said, since I'm on high-risk meds, that I needed to have all sorts of additional tests, but that they couldn't be done at the same appointment as the regular eye exam. Say what? Insurance won't allow all this at one appointment. His implication was that methotrexate is problematic for eyes. Is this true? I don't remember hearing this before.
Next, he started freaking about my being on plaquenil, and what it does to eyes. I know that plaquenil can do bad things to eyes, yes. Only one problem: I'm not on it now, I wasn't at the last visit, and I wasn't at any time previous to that. Never.
Other than needing corrective lenses, I don't have eye problems. Have the rest of you been told any of this?
He said, since I'm on high-risk meds, that I needed to have all sorts of additional tests, but that they couldn't be done at the same appointment as the regular eye exam. Say what? Insurance won't allow all this at one appointment. His implication was that methotrexate is problematic for eyes. Is this true? I don't remember hearing this before.
Next, he started freaking about my being on plaquenil, and what it does to eyes. I know that plaquenil can do bad things to eyes, yes. Only one problem: I'm not on it now, I wasn't at the last visit, and I wasn't at any time previous to that. Never.
Other than needing corrective lenses, I don't have eye problems. Have the rest of you been told any of this?
no I go because I was a premie and blew out my optic nerves in the incubator so I have high optic pressures since birth. i also go because I have extreme dry eyes and she put the plugs in which I have found to be fabulous. (the eye drops actually work now). I have been on mtx for years and restarted it recently with the biologic and never heard anything from the opthamologist on that.
at a certain age they just take pictures of the back of the eyes and do more full dilations and all that crap since all the stuff you won't to deny starts to happen (cataracts and all that crap) maybe you would have fallen into that category kind of like a colonoscopy at age 50....more eye tests at age 50....
he could just be looking for a sister auto immune disease such as
Sjgrens syndrome which likes to eat the saliva and tear glands but if you aint complaining about dry eye he should not go looking.
just blow him off :) in your true alto fashion and get cute glasses
depot
.
All my best
But now...between the Diabetes and RA my PCP told me how important it was to go at least annually which I now do. She runs extra tests on me - don't know the term but takes a picture of the back of my eye - and says that everything looks fine and sees no changes over time.
I feel very fortunate with that.
It was frustrating for getting chewed out for not coming in while taking plaquenil, having never taken it. Don't know where that even came from.
Depot, that's exactly what I did: cool new frames AND prescription sunglasses, which I haven't had in decades. My son needed a new pair of glasses, too, although his shades were still OK. Get out the wallet- sheesh!