Am very worried I have glaucoma - please help!

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I was put on some meds for migraines a couple of weeks ago. My neurologist warned me that in very very few people, in their first month of being on the meds they came down with glaucoma, they got very bad pain in their eyes. He said if this happens stop taking them and get yourself straight to an eye doctor.

Well guess what its happened! It has been building a week or so but I have not stopped taking the meds simply because I get migraines!! My eyes hurt a lot anyway!! And I am supposed to wear glasses and havent for a while. I dont have any anymore and keep meaning to get an eye appointment. So I have been sure that those two things are what is causing the eye pain. But today I can think of nothing else. It is so sharp and just constant and there. I am phoning around all the eye places I can trying to get in to get an appointment and obviously wont be taking the meds today. But I am really scared.

the pain has just gotten a bit better after taking all the painkillers
what do you think?
please don't feel like you are responsible for the decision making process - don't want to put you in that position
just getting opinion

our nearest hospital is colchester - we are in essex

wannabe - HIDTL is so sorry to hear about the pain you go through

just wanted to add i won't be able to take her myself due to DS so it will mean calling an ambulance or taking a taxi

no redness in the eyes and no watering
pupils looked normal

the neurologist said it was such a small percentage of people who had this side effect
what luck eh?

Is there an opthalmologist on call in the hospital? Can you ring them and find out?

thank you. It's all under control now although it took a while to get to that point, and I had additional issues with the consultants whose attitudes are "well as there's no sight anywhay there's nothing worth saving so we won't put in too much effort"

If the pain killers are helping I might be inclined to see if she can get some sleep and go first thing in the morning. If you go to the hospital there's likely to be a wait anyway and the on call opthalmologist probably won't be in the hospital so you're probably talking a minimum of 3/4 hours in a&e. By then it'll be nearly morning anyway.

But only you/she can make that decision.

am going to go phone them now

I would still try to ring the ophthalmologist on call though. I have done this before for patients ( and once for myself!) and it was great to be able to talk to her. In some cases she told me to send the patient in, in others she was able to ascertain that the problem could be left till the morning and normal clinic hours.

wannaBe, what an awful attitude from those doctors! Pain is pain at the end of the day and you shouldn't be expected to put up with it, just because you have no vision!

currently being bounced around on the phone..........

thats not us you need to speak to them
no we can't help you need to speak to the first lot
blahblah

---

right just got through finally to the right person and he was great! really great.
it's lovely when you get past the beaurocracy isn't it? speaking as an NHS staff member myself

so he said that in his opinion it sounds like migraine caused by eye-strain and other factors
he said it has certianly not become angle closure glaucoma as that would mean redness swelling rock hard eyes and popping out eyes (i am sure that is what he said!)
he was not aware of that particular medication as it is after all an anti-convulsive - like most migraine medications it is not primarily to treat migraine
he said he was happy to see her now and she could just come in, and equally he took details and said we could go straight there in the morning without going through GP or anything, just turn up and get nurses to bleep him in eye clinic.
he said that if the pain is fluctuating with painkillers then it is unlikely to be pain caused by glaucoma, as painkillers have no effect on glaucoma pain

hidtl said that the pain got better then it got worse again but she is so tired she wants to go to sleep and indeed was drifting off to sleep as she told me this, so i think we will go as soon as we drop our DS off at pre-school
that seems like the best thing to do.
if she wakes in the night and it has got worse again we will reassess
lord knows she needs her sleep!

So glad you got through to him! Have to say, the use of this drug seems to be relatively new over here. Hope you both get a good night's sleep!

thanks chipmonkey
thanks to all for the advice and help
will update as we have info

dh of hidtl signing off for now - hopefully until after a sucessful trip to the eye clinic in the morning!

hi, the real HIDTL here

Got a good nights sleep (yay) We are getting DS ready for preschool and then we are going to drop him off and head straight to the eye clinic. My eyes dont hurt as much at the moment as they did last night by any means but they do feel very tired and I keep rubbing them. Thanks again for your help. Will keep you posted.

Just checking before work!

Good luck today, I'm glad to hear it's not so sore today

At least you got some sleep anyhow! Hope all goes well!

Hi! Well the doctor was very thorough and checked my eyes a lot - so much I was sure he had found something wrong and wanted to confirm it before he broke the bad news to me!! He dropped stuff in my eyes then pressed all these different lenses etc right up to the eyeballs I am afraid I wasnt a very good patient I kept flinching.

But the very good news is I have not got glaucoma! In fact he cant see anything wrong with my eyes at all (besides the need for glasses which I already knew of, he meant nothing wrong medically) He did check them really really well.

He reckons the pain could be a new (for me) form a migraine. My gut tells me and has been telling me for ages that my migraines must at least partly be caused by the eye strain and would improve if I wore glasses so I am going to get some tomorrow!

I started a thread in chat, Vision Express or Specsavers, I cant choose.

Anyway its good news. My eyes still bloody hurt so the pain is still there but at least I havent got to worry about losing my sight which is the main thing right now.

Thank you very much for helping me so much.

Oh, am so pleased for you.

I suffered awful headaches/migraines as a teenager, when I got contact lenses they cleared up (almost). It was because I was too vain to wear my glasses .

Hope all goes OK at the OPticians

thanks. I tried contacts years ago it was like wearing shards of glass in my eyes. So I think its glasses or nothing for me.

Thanks though I am really pleased too! I was so scared yesterday.

Oh, contacts has really moved on now, I started with hard gas permeable lenses (very uncomfy at first), now I'm on daily disposable and they are fab.
The only way I know I have them in is because I can see!
They are so comfy and not like the lenses of old, given em a try.

the ones I had were soft, but they were not dailies, they were monthly. And I hated them so much it was hell. It was 7 years ago though so maybe it will be better this time.

Mine are like jelly, iyswim, I've been on daily disposable for a good few years now, prob 5/6yrs. Really can't tell they're in.

can you tell when they are inside out? Because I always struggled with that before. It hurt so much either way, you know?

They are the same either way, you couldn't tell, they are really floppy and jelly-like.

I am sure you could have a trial run of them, for free to see how you get on.

From wearing hard lenses it is bliss, but may be a bit longer for you to get used to them if you've never really worn lenses before.

I wonder if they are available with an astigmatism?

I am not sure, I know contact lenses in general can be used with an astigmatism (I asked the Optician as DS1 has severe astigmatism in one eye and wanted to know when he could have contacts), not sure if they have to be a certain type though, sorry!