Author Archives: Annie

Rea's story – Birdshot troubles

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Isn’t it interesting how, when life is absolutely perfect and you couldn’t want for anything more – along comes something that you definitely don’t want just so you can experience a bit of angst!

So, there I was, aged 51, back in 2005, in the perfect job (Director of Social Services) – the one I had spent my whole life dreaming about – and living an amazing life with my weeks being spent in Winchester, one of the most beautiful cities in the UK, and my weekends in London.

I had a little cottage in Hampshire with its back garden running straight down to the river – breakfasts spent communing with the ducks and days spent in my office in the castle, working with amazing Hampshire people and ensuring that we delivered the best possible social care to all those in need.

Back in my home town, London, for the weekend, I took advantage of the wonderful cultural life and saw a play at the Shakespeare globe, followed by a meal. Shortly after the meal, I started to feel very strange, aching bones, dizziness, pounding headache and a feeling that I might just be sick! So I made my excuses and went home, straight to bed. What a Saturday night – was woken halfway through the night with violent vomiting, a headache so bad I thought I was dying and at some stage, I passed out. Woke up several hours later with a huge bruise on my face and feeling very delicate. Spent Sunday in bed and went to work in Winchester on Monday, still feeling very fragile. Recovered by Wednesday. Continue reading →

Cheap Glasses

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I am not at all  sure we should be advertising supermarkets like Asda particularly as they will help put high street optometrists out of business but I recently read about  this price war  they started .  Could be useful if, because of your eye problems, you are going through a phase of having to change your glasses frequently, or if like me you have a habit of losing glasses.
The newspaper reported that the supermarket giant Asda has started a price war with high street opticians by launching an ‘all-round’ price for spectacles, regardless of the complexity of the prescription. They will cost £50 for standard frames and £70 for designer frames.

Bevacizumab/Avastin

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http://www.ajo.com/article/S0002-9394(09)00410-3/abstract

This study looked at the the effect of intravitreal bevacizumab (Avastin; Genentech Inc, South San Francisco, California, USA) on visual acuity and macular thickness in patients with inflammatory choroidal neovascularization (CNV) or cystoid macular edema (CME).

The study concluded that Bevacizumab appears to stabilize the eyes with inflammatory choroid neovascularisation or cystoid macula edema.

This type of treatment is only available in the UK on the NHS for people who have wet AMD. If it does help people with choroidal neovascularization (CNV) or cystoid macular edema (CME), (possible complications of birdshot chorioretinoapthy), as this research would indicate, we need to take action and lobby for it as a possible treatment.

A study of Irish patients with birdshot

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This paper was given at the Prague Ocular Inflammation Society Congress in June 2009 by Dara Kilmartin Consultatant Ophthalmologists at Royal Victoria Hospital Dublin. It would seem to suggest that getting an early diagnosis is important.

Disease severity and outcomes with immunomodulation in Irish Patients with Birdshot Chorioretinoapthy. D.J. Kilmartin, A.C. Hogan, S. Jungkim, P. Kenna, Dept of Ophthalmology and Research Foundation, Royal Victoria Eye & Ear Hospital, Dublin, Ireland Continue reading →

Contrast Sensitivity in patients with Birdshot

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This is the synopsis of a study that was published in October 2008.    It concludes that contrast sensitivity may be a useful measure for clinical studies of birdshot chorioretinopathy and for monitoring patients with the disease.  The synopsis is taken from the Pubmed site which can be be found at http://preview.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed.

Kappel PJ, Monnet D, Yu F, Brezin AP, Levinson RD, Holland GN. Oct 2008. Continue reading →

Birdshot in Families

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The synopsis below summarises a study that has been carried out where there has been more than case of birdshot in a family. We are aware of couple of cases ourselves, and it is interesting to see it is being studied. If you have more than one member of your family with birdshot, we would be interested to know about it.

American journal of ophthalmology. 2009 Jun; 147(6):1042-7, 1047.e1 Clinical features, treatment methods, and evolution of birdshot chorioretinopathy in 5 different families. Trinh L, Bodaghi B, Fardeau C, Monin C, Labetoulle M, Soubrane G, Lehoang P Continue reading →

Annie's story

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Birdshot

Its hard to think back to the time when I first began to have visual problems and when exactly I realised that something bizarre was going on with my eyes.

I remember struggling to drive along unlit up roads and thinking – well I can’t do that anymore, I must be getting old!

I remember floaters driving me mad but the optician told me I didn’t need to worry I didn’t have a detached retina and my macula looked fine.

I remember frequent changes of prescription and new glasses and still not being able to see properly.

I remember the horizon going grey fading into nothingness.

I remember struggling to fill in forms with faint grey boxes that I couldn’t see

Paperback’s whose print faded into the page

Difficulty in underground car parks, getting keys into the locks at night, finding light switches, deactivating alarms in poorly lit areas.
Continue reading →