Specsavers scared me and now I have a hospital appointment?! Freaking out!

[BownnTown]

So I went to specsavers as I was getting a lot of migraines. Paid for the extra scan thing that they do. All went well, scan looked good. Then I went to the next bit where they have a good look in your eyes and he asked me if I often wake up with a bad headache - I said I do sometimes (though not often). He then told me I have “narrow angles” or something which is a sign of diabetes or high blood pressure. My Bp is always low - he then started going on about glaucoma and mentioned something about going blind overnight?! He arranged for me to have an extra test which checks your points of vision - he checked the results and said all is fine, I just need reading glasses.

Since getting the glasses my headaches seem to have gone - however I’ve now received a hospital appointment for the eye department?! I don’t have diabetes - I’m so worried right now, I have extreme health anxiety so this really isn’t helping

can anyone shed any light?!

It’ll be precautionary. I had this too and went for an additional appointment at a specialist eye centre (everything was OK).

I have narrow angles and glaucoma. I'd sure rather be in the system than not.

Optician is just being cautious and following guidelines, OP. I had the same thing happen to me at Specsavers. I'm a headachey person and was overdue for a check up. The 'air blown in your eye' test thing showed the pressure in one eye to be 'borderline' so they had to refer me.
A couple of months later at the eye hospital, after the eye drops and peripheral vision test, I was told that my corneas are 'thick' and there was no sign of glaucoma or any other problem.
Your optician should have explained the process to you, though.

Huh?

I am a bit confused.

The only advice I gave was that the rare, absolute worst case scenario isn't the end of the world. This is helpful as someone who also suffers from health anxiety and can also focus on the things that have a tiny, tiny chance of happening.

At no point did I tell her not to attend treatment or that she WOULD go blind. I just said not to spiral in the meantime.

I'm not sure if you misunderstood my comment, but your "WTAF" is completely disproportionate to what I actually said.

Hey. Did these headaches come out of nowhere or have you always had issues ? Eyes are normally not the cause. This could be something like NDPH.

Get an MRI Brain & Neck and see a Neurologist who specialises in headache/migraine

I’m sure she’s planning to.

Spectators referred my to eye casualty because I had very dry eyes. Thank God they did because my eyes were so dry I was in danger of permanently damaging my corneas. I made the decision to go there because my GP had been fobbing me off with medication for conjunctivitis. By the time I went I could hardly see & was in constant pain, when the optician examined my eyes, my corneas were like corrugated cardboard, she sent me straight to eye casualty who put me on extra strong steroid drops along with artificial tears for during the day & gel to put in at night, it took 3 months on the steroids & drops for there to be any improvement, I'm on artificial tears & night gel for the rest of my life, had I left it any longer or listened to my GP, I would most likely be blind by now.

I have narrow angles. I go to the eye hospital every year and everything is fine. No further action needed. No diabetes .
I am completely unaware I have narrow angles!!!

I won't use Specsavers again, they have form for this. I see a private eye doctor for a pre existing condition, he said to get my prescription checked, I yild Specsavers I did not need a full medical check as I'd just seen an eye doctor. They insisted and did it against my will and made a big fuss about my eye pressures which I went back to my doctor about and he said they were fine.

Does anyone know any opticians that don't act like this?

I nearly posted WTF? as well. As a few others did.

And hey, even being blind isnt as bad these days. I know a blind woman who gets on with life and has a very gorgeous dog.

That is one of the most bonkers posts I've ever seen on here.

I'll own my WTF. Losing your eyesight is shit, however much you try to dress it up as "not the end of the world". You can no longer do activities that you used to do. Getting around is harder and you're so much more vulnerable and it's isolating.

I only have useful sight in one eye at the moment (hope to have it fixed, next week) and I can't tell you how much binocular vision is underrated. Simple things like opening a car door without smashing it into th he one next to us (as a passenger. If I drove I would have needed to stop because I get temporarily blinded by glare - I've already injured myself as a pedestrian when it's taken my by surprise and I've gone arse over tit over something), crossing a road without having to do some exaggerated looking left and right, preparing food without slicing bits of finger off or threading a bloody needle.

Losing eyesight, even some of it, is shit. Fortunately, many of the ways of losing eyesight are very avoidable, as long as they're caught early.

Can anyone win? If they didn’t send you and something, god forbid, occurred people would be up in arms that it hadn’t been picked up upon. It’s just to check you out and surely better to be safe than sorry! Specsavers sounds like they are being careful and doing their job of flagging up possible problems before they get worse!

It's a good thing that the optician has picked up on a potential issue or risk factor for an issue and can refer you for it to be checked out and monitored at an early stage. If your visual fields and pressures in your eyes (the puff test) are fine, that's really reassuring at this stage, but it's still very important to go to the appointment so specialists can make sure everything is ok and decide if you need any regular monitoring or interventions to protect your sight.

“They have form for this…”. FFS!!!!

They have form for detecting an eye condition that someone may need treatment for and referring them for it. What an absolute bunch of bastards!!

Specsavers don’t refer any more than your average opticians and the decisions about what to refer and how urgently in any opticians are made by each optometrist as an individual practitioner.

An eye test that is just “a check of your glasses prescription” does not exist in law. These things are legal matters and if you haven’t looked in someone’s eyes then you haven’t performed a test to legal standards. If you see something abnormal you should then refer the patient.

If as in your case you are already under an ophthalmologist and they have everything under control then they should have given you a letter to take to your optometrist explaining the situation and said “please can you refract and supply glasses - this patient is already under my care for x,y and z and this is my management plan.” They rarely fucking bother though, but funnily enough it’s the optometrist’s fault…

Even if they did send such a letter, the optometrist would still need to look at the health of your eyes, they just would know they didn’t need to refer you.

"Having form" for being thorough and following through on their duty of clinical care to act when/if they identify an issue... That's actually a good thing.

Feminist your friend has a gorgeous dog that she can’t see!!

I have been sent directly to hospital from the opticians. The optician rang ahead and made the appt. If the two locations hadn't been only 5 mins walk apart optician was talking about calling an ambulance.

I suspect that if your condition was urgent, you'd have been fast tracked in some way.

Its not when you specifically say you DONT WANT a medical examination as you have just seen a consultant opthalmologist two weeks ago who gave a thorough, dilated examination and just sent me to the opticians to check my prescription.
In what way is forcing someone to have something done against their will a good thing?
I suffer from health anxiety which is why I pay to see a private consultant for this condition and I don't need the optician to start poking his nose in and making me worry. As it was I had to have another appointment with my consultant, at great cost, to be told that there was nothing to worry about.

I should be able to just get my prescription without having someone look in my eyes at other things if I don't want them to.

I don't think you understand what it's like to suffer from health anxiety

Much the same happened to me recently. I had a sudden increase in floaters in one eye, had a Specsavers appointment and they thought it could be a torn retina so I got an urgent referral to the ophthalmology clinic. It turned out to be something less serious but I'm very glad I went.

I just wish I'd remembered to bring sunglasses for the journey home. Being out in the sunshine after they'd put those make-your-irises-enormous drops in was really unpleasant.

https://www.moorfields.nhs.uk/mediaLocal/bsnhrral/narrow-angles-patient-information-glaucoma-service-march2023.pdf

some information from Moorfields

**Edited to say this is in reply to @IDontHateRainbows

Well, I actually have very bad health anxiety myself, so I do understand health anxiety.

However, an optometrist has a legal obligation to perform certain elements when they do an eye test and can be found negligent if they don’t do it. You saying you saw an ophthalmologist last week does not remove that responsibility from the optometrist. As I said, if your ophthalmologist sent a letter to the optometrist to that effect then maybe if you really refused to have your eyes looked at it could be ok.

But there are lots of scenarios where it could get the optometrist into trouble. Eg - patient is under ophthalmologist for glaucoma and was seen last week. They come in and want just their prescription as they are under the hospital. Optometrist complies. Next day they lose half of their vision as they have a retinal detachment which could have been seen starting to come off the day before. This is then open to. a charge of negligence by the optometrist as if they’d looked at the eyes they might have seen it in an earlier stage and prevented it fully detaching.

I know all about health anxiety and I fully know what it’s like to not want to have tests done. Believe me, I avoid as many as possible. But when you are actually there having a test or procedure done you do need to accept that there are things that have to be done in order for the practitioner to do their job properly and that doing so means they are competent and good at their job, not that they are being deliberately awkward.

In this case the problem is that an eye examination by an optometrist has to legally include certain elements, whereas at a hospital appointment with an ophthalmologist they can just do whatever they feel is appropriate at the time.

He’s being cautious, being responsible! They are optometrists not drs so trained in day to day eye care but refer anything of concern to eye specialist doctors, ophthalmologists.

I'm pretty sure he was not referring to your blood pressure, OP. He would have meant the pressure within your eye, which has nothing to do with BP. That's what they are checking when they puff air at your eyes. High pressure in your eye can lead to glaucoma, which can progress very quickly and lead ultimately to blindness, if not treated. It is often associated with diabetes, but not all diabetics get it, by any means, and not all people with it have diabetes. If that's what he was worried about, you would have been sent straight to the hospital, and you weren't. In any case, to make the referral, he would have to get your permission so he must have told you he was doing it and why. It sounds to me as if you weren't really listening to what he was telling you otherwise you would know what the problem was. It's up to you to know what is happening which means you have to listen carefully and ask questions. I have been through this recently when Vision Express referred me to the Macular Unit because the optician was concerned about macular degeneration. I attended the hospital regularly for 18 months and then the problem resolved itself. Just be grateful these earlier interventions are now possible

What will happen does NOT have to happen. It is entirely preventable.

Going blind these days is OK! No it isn't. So WTF to that.

Getting diabetes isn't the end of the world. Erm yes it can be it can lead to death from stroke so WTF to that.

So no WTAF is not disproportionate at all when I have family members with both these conditions. You can wander around in your happy cloud cuckoo land and state of confusion but don't minimise serious life threatening and life changing conditions.