Wet macular Degeneration in Young Person

[scoobs321]

Hello, are there any eye specialists on here that might be able to help?

Background, my DD19 was diagnosed and treated for Wet Macular Degeneration in one eye when she was just 18 in 2021. Had all the follow ups and signed off in 2022 just before she went to Uni. Fast forward to this week she had a routine eye test at specsavers and we paid for the OCT scan - just to be on the safe side as thats how the WMD was initially picked up.

The scan has revealed some changes, he mentioned optic atrophy in the treated eye and drusen in the unaffected eye. Her eyesight is not affected so we were very surprised. They have done an urgent referral to our local eye hospital where she was originally treated. I have tried chasing up the referral but it seems it has to go up to her registered Dr in her uni town. Even though she is home now. DD has contacted her GP surgery and they have said she needs to make an appointment! we all know how hard it is to get an appointment.

I've emailed her previous consultant's secretary to explain what's happened and give them our contact details/ ask for an appointment asap. They haven't got back to me yet.

I appreciate we are probably flapping a bit here, but we are both so worried that her eyesight could be further compromised. Especially with the things the optician mentioned from the scan this week. Last time in 2021 the referral to appointment wait was 8 months (due to covid they said)

Is there anything else we can do? and also if anyone has any experience of something like this - do you have any words of wisdom/calm as we are so worried.

What did they think was the cause of the problems last time?

I am an optometrist. 100% its all down to vision. If vision is unaffected I would wait to be called.

In that instance, as an optom. I Would email findings to her last consultant to see if findings were new or old rather than refer on immediately causing worry. A day / week would make zero difference to her. Wet armd - usually distorted watery central vision.

Just my tuppence

@underneaththeash they didn't have any real explanation, said could be something to do with her being so short sighted.

@Radyward thank you for replying, one thing we are both questioning a bit is that we had a pre-reg optician do her eye test and look at the OCT scan so maybe their explanation of what they could see wasn't the most carefully delivered. It did/has caused worry. He did go to his supervisor so assume was given the go ahead to do the referral.

Since my original post we have tracked the referral to the eye infirmary, (there was a bit of a blip as it had been rejected by local eye infirmary as out of area as DD had put her uni drs address on the specsavers form ) we can see on DDs NHS app that she's on a 1 week rapid access appt so should hopefully be seen very soon.