Macular edema in pregnancy - anyone?

[glitterjo]

Hi

I'm 26w+6 pregnant with my first. Have had terribly blurred vision in my right eye plus flashing lights in the other for a week now; cue trips to hospital/visits from community midwife monitoring BP etc. It was quite high but didn't really stay that way and yesterday was totally normal. Bit of protein in my urine but not much. Went to the optician this afternoon for an eye test to see if that showed anything up, and it did. I have macular edema (so basically fluid retention in my eye). I've now been referred to the eye department at the hospital so hopefully that won't take too long...but I'm feeling pretty scared.

I can only look at the computer for a few minutes at a time, my head starts to hurt and I feel very sick. I've been signed off work and although I know I can't work like this I'm feeling really upset about it. I love my job and work in a very small office - they're being really great about it but it's an awful feeling when you know how much of a struggle it's going to be for those who have to pick up the slack. I'm really scared I'm not going to get back to work before I have the baby. And I'm really scared I'm not going to be able to see properly ever again!

Has anyone else had this? I don't think it's a particularly common pregnancy complaint but from a little Googling it doesn't seem totally unknown.

Hi,
I have exactly the same thing. This baby was completely unplanned and I'm diabetic. My left eye is extremely blurry and the right eye is far from perfect. I went to the opticians and they said I had an edema and refered me to an eye specialist that could have taken 3 weeks instead I called the eye department in the hospital and got an apointment the following day. I'm petrified that my sight will get worse and I will have to leave university. I'm off work but that doesn't bother me as much. They found a bleed in the back of my eye so now I have to go and have lazer surgery on Tuesday to correct this other wise it would get considerably worse. They said I should find some improvements to my vision after this also. I'm only 18 weeks so still a long time to go. I was just wondering what happened with you leading up to labour and did it correct itself after labour?

Hi both of you I was just wondering what the outcome was with your macular edema ? I appreciate it was a long time ago now, I’m not pregnant but had routine eye test which could fluid on my macular and I’m waiting my hospital appointment, but going stir crazy! ☹️ What was the outcome for you both in the end ? Thank you

@Crazycatlady1233 - saw your message and didn't want to skip over it. I had a choroidal neovascular membrane, which caused fluid build-up in my retina (not related to my pregnancy) - apparently its a thing that can sometimes just happen.

I expect at your initial hospital appointment they will do some standard visual examinations of your eyes and will do a scan called an optical coherence tomography (OCT), which is super quick to do, feels basically just like getting photos taken of your eye, and allows them to take cross sectioned images of your retina to check the levels of swelling. They might also do a fluorescein angiogram, where they inject contrast dye into your arm and then take photos of your eye at various intervals to check blood vessel flow etc. These test results will inform your diagnosis and treatment.

In the interests of full disclosure, my condition ended up being treated by injections of medication into my eye, which I promise is nowhere near as grim as it sounds. My vision is basically entirely normal these days - the wonders of modern medicine! Good luck, hope you are able to get some answers.

Thank you so much for the reply, I appreciate it after all this time. Glad to hear you have got full vision back. I don’t have the flashing vision that you had though, so maybe not the same thing but who knows, keeps me hope it’s not necessarily macular degeneration I’m dealing with. I can’t stand the waiting and worrying. Good to hear that the injections are not as bad as they sound, I’m hoping I will be in a good state of mind if the say this is the treatment, a few of these and job done, but the thought of having them for life is horrendous.

Just been to hospital and that is exactly what I have too. One injection they are hoping and it will resolve. Thanks so much for your reassurance last week x