Many on long term oral prednisolone will be familiar with the saying that it is the gift that keeps on giving. It is the one medication that gives those who are taking it life but also results in many secondary conditions resulting due to the side effects and the prolonged side effects.
I have written before that I have a love hate relationship with oral steroids. My lungs need them but the rest of my body certainly does not. Recently I have felt that the prednisolone just keeps on hitting me in the face with one thing after another from destroying my adrenal gland meaning unless there is a miracle I will never get off steroids, my bones have been leached of all their goodness and now have osteoporosis, my pancreas is affected meaning I have constantly high blood sugar levels, I have had issues with my eyes as well but never to the extent I do now.
For a good number of years now I have had swollen optic nerves. This has not caused me too much bother other than some pretty bad headaches, these headaches have been getting worse and more often to the point a few weeks ago it floored me. I was in bed the entire day, feeling sick and being sick. I have not had a migraine before but thee headaches are what I imagine they are like.
I went to my optician last October- I was early for my annual check but I kept getting blurred vision at night and the feeling of having a film over my eyes which no matter how much I rubbed them or put moisturising drops still did not ease the discomfort. At this appointment we discovered I was missing a large chunk of my peripheral vision. I did the visual field test a number of times but each time I kept missing a full 1/4 of the circle in my left eye. Obviously this is not normal so I was referred on to the eye hospital with the final consultant visit the other day. I have been having a variety of scans, tests and drops put in my eyes to try and establish what is going on and the appointment was going to be the reveal all and I was hoping it would be an easy fix and also (clutching at straws a little) it would be something other than an effect from the prednisolone.
Anyway I saw the consultant who needs to speak to another consultant because she doesn’t really know what it is that is wrong but there is something seriously wrong. This did not fill be with hope. You go to the consultant because they know these things and can tell you what is wrong but its more waiting for just now while she speaks to her colleague, she is also wanting me to have a head MRI so they can get a better view of things but Im not really sure how that will help them as I don’t think it will show them anything in more details than they already have but maybe it will.
The long and short of it is I have swollen optic nerves but also the outside of the optic nerve is being compressed so the middle of it is bulging out and there is fluid accumulating with it. They don’t know why or how. They are not convinced it is related to my brain as the headaches I get are not consistent with raised intercrainial pressure which is reassuring. So its back to the waiting game.
ANONYMOUS-ASTHMA 