CW: My lived experience with ophthalmologists while legally blind. Medical details.
RE: https://disabled.social/@tomkindlon/117134288892873004
When my contract was not renewed and I needed #ObamaCare, I looked at the list of in-network #ophthalmologists with my new #insurance. Some of the listings had the dates that doctors graduated. I found the earliest date listed and scheduled my appointment.
She went to school with my former #ophthalmologist, and actually listened to me about my #eyes.
There are two specific things that doctors need to understand about my eyes in order to appropriately advise me, and they are due to my medical history.
Below is a brief #history of my eyes and vision, including all of the everything.
There are two tests for #legal #blindness.
1) Having a best-corrected #visual acuity of 20/200 or less in the better eye. If, with the best eyeglasses on contact lenses, you can only read the E at the top of the eye chart, you are legally blind in the #US.
2) Having a visual field of 20° or less. This means you can only see straight ahead, and you have to track movement by turning your head. I am here.
Now for my deets:
I'm bilaterally aphakic, meaning neither eye has a lens. This is a post-surgical condition, as outlined below. At the time of the surgery, there was no idea that implantable lenses would exist. This was not a bad outcome or medical malpractice.
I was born with #cataracts in both eyes. My body has no clue how to grow clear lenses. Because I'm old, I didn't have my first eye surgeries until I was three. Doctors were afraid to operate on infants in the early 1960s, and one of my classmates in kindergarten had a heart issue.
I also had surgeries when I was eight, and eleven or twelve. I don't know what the actual goal was for these operations, but they weren't really helpful.
When I was sixteen, I had a new kind of #laser #surgery in #Minneapolis. In separate surgeries, doctors basically zapped the lenses and their structures in each eye.
There is currently nowhere to attach a lens implant in either eye. My corneas are so thick from all my surgeries that Lasik is not an option, either. My vision is the best it will ever be, and most of the time, I'm okay with it.
When an ophthalmologist measures intraocular pressure (this is the test for #glaucoma), there is a chart that shows how to adjust the reading to account for corneal thickness. Many ophthalmologists don't realize that corneas can be thicker than what is shown on the chart, and assume my pressure is higher than it actually is. They then #misdiagnose me with glaucoma and prescribe #eyedrops that I do not need, and #schedule additional appointments that require me to pay a #copay because they're specialists.
My corrected acuity is 20/50, but with caveats. I can legally drive in #Texas, so long as I don't exceed 45 mph and avoid #expressways.
I have a "good" eye and a "helper" eye. The helper eye can only be corrected to 20/200, but if it isn't receiving light, my brain freaks out and thinks my good eye is on its own. I have such intense nystagmus (my eye involuntarally jostles around to try to see better), that it severely reduces my acuity.
So, instead of using the regular device for covering one eye, I need to use a translucent device for the "cover one eye" part of the exam. If they don't honor this when determining the prescription for my eyeglasses, the glasses won't function correctively or correctly.
When doctors and their assistants do not listen to me about my thick corneas and need for a blurrer rather than a blocker, they also add inaccurate information to my medical records. This directly interferes with my life.
