I'm on steroids! :o

Continuing from the last post...

Two days ago, I Googled "red eye and sinus pain" and got this good site that listed the different things that could be wrong up there (in my eye/sinuses). Most of them were allergies, which I have none of as far as I know. So Dad was thinking that I might had gotten an allergic reaction during the room change; possibly from the paint. But the thing that puzzled him was that it was only happening on the left side. You would think if it's an allergic reaction it would be on both sides, right?

So, thinking it was an allergic reaction from something in my new room, I made the decision that it would be best to sleep in the living room for a night to see if it indeed was something in my new room. We also decided that if nothing changed by Monday (today), we should go see a doctor.

After two nights of sleeping in the living room, the only thing that had changed was a pain in my back and neck from sleeping on the couch. So Dad called the family doctor to see what he should do. That doctor referred us to the Wal-Mart Vision Center, who is our regular eye doctor.

The ride over there was horrible. I couldn't open either of my eyes because of the sunlight [(consensual photophobia) (It's interesting that it says I spelled 'photophobia' wrong, but homophobia is on the list of correct spellings :\)], and towards the end I started to get that empty feeling in my stomach which usually means I could throw up soon (motion sickness). By the time we got to Wal-Mart (~30 minutes away), my left eye was watering like crazy, my nose was running, and my stomach felt empty (it actually was cos I hadn't eaten anything since the night before).

The lady who was at the counter in the Vision Center took one look at me and said, "Jeez... That looks awful."

"Yeah, it feels awful too," I said. She seated us and gave Dad a bunch of forms to fill out. A couple minutes later another nurse lady walked past. She glanced at us with a smile on her face. Once she saw my eye the smile quickly left. "Jesus, what happened to your eye?" she asked.

"That's what we're here to find out."

Finally the doctor took me back to the examination room. She did a medical history (asking me tons of questions), and did a basic exam. By basic exam I mean she had me look and read the eye chart, and had me follow her little light thingy.

After all the basic stuff, she dropped two yellow dye droplets in my eye, then looked at my eyes in the microscope. After shining many different colored lights in my eyes, she said she thought I might have Iritis. However, she didn't want to give me anything because she hadn't dealt with it enough to be sure. She ended up referring us to another eye clinic half an hour away. Then she explained what they may do to me and what they may give me as a medication. Before we left she washed my eye out. Thank God she did too, because that seemed to do the trick. I could finally open my eyes in the sunlight again, and the pain at the top of my eye was hardly there anymore. Btw, we were confusing that pain for sinus pain. It really wasn't in the sinuses, but in the top of my eye.

I had Dad get me a double cheeseburger from McDonald's before we left to go to the clinic. I was afraid of getting that ominous empty feeling in my stomach again. I ate most of it even though I really didn't have an appetite.

So anyway, the doctor at the eye clinic did basically the same thing the previous doctor did. He said I do have Iritis. In short, it's an inflammation of the iris. He gave me some eye drops which have prednisolone acetate in it. In other words, I'm taking steroids in eye drop form. I have to drop one droplet in my eye every hour. At night, I'll have to set my alarm for the middle of the night to put another drop in (that'll be fun...).

I have a follow-up appointment scheduled for Wednesday to see how the drops are helping.

I just had my 7th drop today and we can already see a difference in eye color. It's not so red anymore, nor does it hurt or water much.


Well, this is getting a bit on the long side so I'll stop here for now. I'll update you all after my appointment Wednesday.


P.S. Yes, I have deleted my Twitter account. It became too tedious to update it everytime something worth tweeting about happened.

P.S.S. Wow! 39 people who voted on the poll are Harry Potter fans vs. 7 who aren't :O