Another Poke

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This was originally posted to my blog, Diabetes Odyssey.

Every eight weeks I submit myself to a certain kind of torture. Just kidding, it’s just an eye appointment I have to go to every eight weeks. I have proliferative diabetic retinopathy and it’s really bad. The only way I can keep it from getting worse is to undergo aggressive treatment.

Every eight weeks I go in to see my retina specialist. They give me a quick vision test, numb my eyes and test my eye pressure, then dilate my eyes and take a scan to get a good look at what’s going on inside. Then the doctor comes in and does a quick exam herself and lets me know how I’m doing. Lastly she gives me one shot of Avastin in each eye.

This time around, though, she let me know my left eye, the good one, is doing good still and we will keep up with the Avastin injections. But my right eye, (the bad one I have virtually no vision in anymore anyway), is being very stubborn and is still very angry (swollen) inside so she wanted to give me a third injection today.

“I know you have very little vision in that eye anyway, but we still want it to be as healthy as possible.” She said.

And I agree.

So that means I got one injection in my left eye, and TWO in my right…in one day.

She was quick and gentle as usual. I never feel the injection in my left eye, but my right eye is more sensitive these days because of all the surgeries and treatments I’ve had, and probably the fact that this eye is oil filled makes a difference as well. She did the Avastin injection and then had me wait a few minutes with my eyes closed before she returned and did the steroid injection. It still hurt a bit, though, and I let her know it felt as if the pressure in my eye increased a lot. She had me wait a couple more minutes then tested my pressure to make sure it wasn’t too high. It wasn’t

She let me know we’ll keep doing the Avastin in each eye every eight weeks and now we’ll also be doing the steroid every four months or so.

Oh, yay…

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i wonder how they determine how often the shots are. I had the first one (Lucnentis) in my left eye this am, and six hours later still feel like sand paper.
How long does the sand paper grit your eye? They should have done both eyes today cause now I don’t want to go get the right one on Monday. My shots will be 5 weeks apart forever he said today. Ifyou can’t get tap water in your eye for 24 hours how the heck do u get the “gunk” out. I’m using eye drops but they don’t help much.

I hope this treatment is working for you. I’ve done everything and my retinopathy and Diabetic Macular Edema is progressing.

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My eye always felt like sandpaper for the first day, after that only slightly irritated and usually cleared up in a couple of days.

Lucentis does work, at least it did for me. After a year of treatment my macular edema is gone.

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The irritation, I’m told, is caused from the antibiotic ointment the use in your eye to keep the injection site from getting infected. The irritation for me usually goes away within 12 hours or so.

My doctor told me the frequency of injections is based on how well your eyes respond to the medication. usually for Avastin they start with six or eight weeks and adjust from there as needed.

The Avastin is working very well on my left eye, it has actually improved the retinopathy a bit. But not so good on my right.

I hope the injections help you out, too.