In the three years that I’ve had myasthenia I’ve been sure that my eyesight has been getting worse. When looking into the (not too far) distance I often mistake bags for children, dogs for bags and children for dogs. Yet in that time I’ve never gone for an eye test…why you ask, well I’ve been waiting for my eyes to be ‘back to normal’.
I didn’t see the point of getting them tested until they were as good as they could and would be again. Since the early days of my MG my left eye has been at a different kilter from the right so when I look up I get double vision. I hoped by taking the medication that over time this would correct itself. But it hasn’t and after 3 years I finally bit the bullet and went to get an eye test.
The test itself was pretty tough – my vision doubled, blurred and I could feel ptosis come on as my eyes during what felt like hours of tests. I left with a lighter wallet and a very droopy right eye.
The result of tests shocked me a little – anything more than 60cms away from me will start to blur. The optician asked how I had been functioning? In blurs and fuzzy patterns it seems now, any time I take my new glasses off.
What made me finally bite the bullet was the view from my living room. Although I knew it was beautiful, I longed to see the things Elaine described across the Forth in Fife – the distant mountains, the boats on the horizon and the sun setting – as more than just blurs.
If my eyes do align again it might be that I’ll need a different pair of glasses although I asked that the optician did not put a prism in the glass so hopefully not. I did this because I had one I my previous pair of glasses when the first symptoms came on (which I lost before I was diagnosed). Rather than making things clearer, it made the world feel at a distance and always tilting which as you can imagine made me feel queasy.
365 days of myasthenia 