Please have your eyesight checked regularly!

[Tina Sweetland]

Lynn

I totally understand where you are coming from. When I was initially diagnosed at 19 I understand why (as it presented similar to really poor eyesight) and I was initially under the eye hospital....and as time has gone on I have sort of assumed that mine wasn't very bad as it's been stable for many years...I was then moved to a new Opt about 8 years ago..and I guess all I am trying to state is that I had assumed that as I was seeing him twice a year (and more if I was struggling) that he was caring for my eyes 100%....it appears that he was only perfroming the lens fitting..and I should have been having regular full eye health checks too...so whilst I can fully understand the mis diagnosis 25 years ago....I am quite cross (this is SUCH an understatment) that I wasn't made aware that I wasn't having a full eye health check every time I saw him...I perceived him as the specialist...and my guide/support of my precious eyes...I just didn't want anyone else to suffer the same..and get checked out !! have fun

[Lia Williams]

Tina,

After all your lens fitting problems I do hope that you manage to get some glasses to see with.

I'm a patient at Moorfield's and attend every six months for a contact lens check-up. When I first went there I had a full eye test, but in the last few years they have pointed out that they only 'check the front of the eye'. This does seem strange when I'm seeing optometrists for my eye. Although if their expertise can be spread to more people this way then perhaps it's not such a bad thing.

They have frequently asked me when I last had an eye test. Knowing that it was more than two years since I last had an eye test I hastily arranged an eye test a couple of day before my last Moorfield's appointment. Fortunately they didn't find any other problems (oh and Moorfield's didn't ask me this time).

Just a thought - perhaps contact lens fitters who only do not do full eye tests need to spell this out to us on paper. Because the lens fitting can be quite stressful, journey time, waiting time not to mention 'will this lens work, hurt etc' it's hard not to believe that we've not had a full eye test. I certainly didn't until it was pointed out.

Lia

[Anne B]

I have only ever had a full eye test once at Moorfields, and you do think that as you are going to Moorfields you don't need to visit your opticians because your eyes have been checked !!!

Tina, I am soooo glad you have found out that there is no KC and i hope all goes well for you in the future.
Please let us know how you get on and keep in touch

[Sweet]

Lynn thanks for that ...

Ok i need to ask the obvious question here! Are we getting a full examination test at Moorfields in the contact lens clinic? And if we're not why don't they tell us as we only see a consultant about every two years there if we are lucky.

So do i need to go to a local optometrist for a check up? Or maybe think that my last optom did her job and she looked??

Hhmm thinking that i need to find a new friendly optom in London ...

[Andrew MacLean]

Ireckon that thee are two issues here

1 Optometrists (in hospital or in the high street) do what optometrists do.

2 Ophthalmologists do what ophthalmologists do.

It is no good seeing an optometrist and thinking (s)he will do both parts of the job, and it is no good seeing an ophthalmologist thinking that (s_he will, in some way, substitute for an optometrist.

In all the years I have attended eye departments in hospital, I have had appointments with both professionals, witht he provision that the otometrist could arrange for me to see an ophthalmologist if there was a need AND I had emergency access to both if required.

As to diagnosis, it is only an ophthalomologist who can do this. The Optometrist can recognize but is not a qualified diagnostician. In fact it was my optometrist who first recognized that I had something wrong with my eyes (probably even knew it was Keratconus) but he did not speak the word and he offered no 'diagnosis'. What he did was tell me to go direct to my GP and deliver a letter suggesting a referral to an Ophthalmologist.

Andrew

[Lia Williams]

Sweet and Andrew,

No Sweet, at least in my case, the optometrists at the contact lens clinic at Moorfields are NOT doing a full eye test.

So although, Andrew, 'optometrists do what optometrists do' at the contact lens clinic they are only fitting contact lenses and not full testing eyes.

Lia

[Lynn White]

OK Let me clarify further...

In hospitals - clinics are divided up re speciality. There are glaucoma clinics, diabetic ones, orthoptic (where they look at eye muscle function, contact lens clinics and so on.) At none of these do you get a "full" eye examination. No more than you get a full physical check up if you were going to ear nose and throat about your ears or seeing an orthopedic surgeon about a dodgy knee.

The old fashioned word for a consultant is a specialist - they specialise in a particular condition, that is what it means. So clinics do not spend time doing a general check up.

So if you have KC, you go to hospital to have THAT checked out. The consultant looks at the cornea once a year to check how its doing and the contact lens clinic looks after your lenses.

If you are having your lenses sorted in the community then yes, check out what the situation is re normal eye exams. Nowadays the situation in Scotland is different Andrew, so any of your experiences will not be reflected south of the border. All Scots can now get free eye exams.

English and Welsh people will have to pay for eye exams if you are not on benefits. If your KC means your "spectacle" power (whethe ror not you can see with it) is over 10D then you can get a free test because of that. The actual term on the forms is that you are prescribed complex spectacle lenses - even though you don't wear glasses...

Diagnosis - this is actually changing as optoms become more involved in handling various eye conditions so the old mantra of recognising not diagnosing is fading away, though some optoms will cover their backs and still not come out and tell you if you have KC.

[Andrew MacLean]

Lynne

I am happy to acknowledge that things are better in Scotland, and cordially invite everybody to move up here!

My confusion, though, has to do with the use of the idea of a "full eye test". I sit in the chair and the optometrist shines lights in my eye. then I do the Snellen Chart. Then I look at the little green and red rectangles (I am afraid that I am colour blind, so could not say which was which). Then I go through a whole raft of indignities and I had thought that this was what was called "an eye test".

The optometrist tries out various lenses to see how I get the best cvorrection, and then checks my astigmatism.

This is always done by an optometrist. She (in recent years my optometrists have always been female) does what she does. At the end of all this I emerge with a prescription for specs. At one time I'd have emerged with new contact lenses of various types.

Meantime I also see an Ophthalmologist. He (again my ophthalmologist happens to be a man) examines my eyes, although he can be helped by a note of the retinal reflex that has been done by the optometrist. I have always called this an eye examimation.

I take your point, Lynne, about optometrists offering diagnosis. This was not my experience, but I am a dinosaur and my condition was diagnosed while Moses was still wearing nappies. I wonder whether this means that some people who have a 'diagnosis' of KC never actually see an Ophthalmologist. I'd be alarmed if that were the case.

Andrew

[Michael P]

Andrew, i think it was an opthalmologist who diagnosed my KC 30+ years ago and I was referred to Moorfields.

To the best of my recollection i have not seen a consultant since and it was only when i asked to discuss a graft that an appointment was made for me.

It seems to me, as with everything else in life, if you don't ask, you don't get.

[Pat A]

This is a fascinating post, but the more I read the more concerned I am about how little I know! (and I did think I was reasonably intelligent and streetwise!)

As a relative newcomer to KC, I rather naively thought that MEH would be taking care of my eye tests in the future (although like others thay haven't even done one yet). If I now understand this string correctly, the annual (or whatever recommended period) eye test still needs to be carried out by your local optometrist - even though glasses may not be any use.

So could that optometrist then prescribe, obtain and fit contact lenses for the KC patient - such as RoseK/Softperm etc etc - or are these only available from hospitals?

And then an annual - or other period as determined - check up is still needed at an Eye hospital with an Opthmologist to check on the KC element.

Sorry if I am now really being thick, but it would be helpful if this could be clarified - apart from anything else it would save me - and I suspect many others - potential expensive and frustrating trips to Moorfields or other eye hospital for contact lenses if my local Optom is wiling to help.