LabCorp

Was it some kind of a special test? I would start complaining to your doctor to follow up.

 

Wait 'till they bill you...

And then bill you again.

And then again.

Still fighting with them on a triple billing issue from a year ago. A horrible company with worse customer service than a cable provider.

 

Wow, this looks serious! Very sorry to learn of your eye problem.

What exactly happened? Why do you suspect auto-immune disease?

I'm surprised you're not being treated while awaiting test results. I don't know how the US system or LabCorp works but if I were you I would rely more on advice from eye specialists rather than from a lab. If you had a traumatic eye injury there should be default preventive measures to take to avoid further injury.

 

Does it look like these examples?

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These are both called "pinguecula" and are "...growth that looks like a yellow spot or bump on the conjunctiva. It often appears on the side of the eye near your nose. A pinguecula is a deposit of protein, fat, or calcium..."

These growths can become larger and appear like the one below. Apparently they are then called "pterygium".

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If your "white line" looks similar you should read the text on the American Academy of Ophthalmology webpage I linked to above and heed their advice. Your doctors should be able to provide more help.

Of course, you may have something else entirely, perhaps a foreign body that got embedded. You should document and photograph your symptoms... a picture is worth a thousand words.

 

Perhaps there was an incident where your eye was injured. My limited understanding on the matter is that the eye is a special case when it comes to how it interacts with the immune system because it's normally sequestered from the immune system so something else has to happen for the immune system to actually "see it", recognize it as foreign and to attack it. Perhaps a foreign object entered the eye and triggered an immune response to it, and normal eye tissue was inadvertently recognized as foreign in the process.

IMO, aside from the "white line" you mentioned all of the other observations you mentioned are not unusual if you simply have some sort of irritant in your eye. Of course, it also depends on how long you've experienced these symptoms and their severity, which I cannot tell from your narrative. Perhaps you've had another related pre-existing condition(s) or a family history of related health issues.

Normal eyesight is such an important thing we often take for granted. Good luck with your treatment!

 

I hope the test results come back soon and things get moving forward. Good luck!

You think two qualified and referring ophthalmic practitioners and a qualified and practicing ophthalmic surgeon wouldn't recognize pterygium or pinguecula, and all three might completely miss an embedded foreign object upon separate examinations? I don't think it's helpful to try to diagnose his eye condition using Google.

Sincerely,
Andrew.

 

Andrew, if you would read the OP's original messages you would hopefully sympathize with his distress. That's the whole point about medical care - relieving physical, emotional and mental distress of your patients. He wasn't getting the relief 11 days after seeing "two qualified and referring ophthalmic practitioners and a qualified and practicing ophthalmic surgeon".

Rather than to complain about the lack of medical response from his "doctor" (notice no mention of specialists) I focused on learning more about his condition and actually suggested he obtain "advice from eye specialists rather than from a lab".

The OP then elaborated a bit more and said he "...Went to eye doctor who referred me to another eye doctor who referred me to eye surgeon" who then said "...damage appears to be caused by auto-immune disease, not bacterial or fungal...". So that means the doctor believes it wasn't an infection.

I then showed the OP some photos to see if the irritant was simply a physical one caused by a benign growth... which if I understand pinguecula correctly, can cause inflammation which in itself may subsequently lead to autoimmune tissue damage due to the normally sequestered nature of eye tissues. These tissues are not normally exposed to the immune system so traumatic or degenerative damage from inflammation can increase the risk of auto-immune recognition of normal ocular tissue.

This is why I showed the OP the pictures and also asked if he had an incident where foreign matter may have entered the eye. My post graduate degree was in immunology.

I suspect you feel professionally a bit miffed to see "a layman" offer opinions and information on a medical problem to another FChatter but physicians also need to take responsibility. If patients feel so distressed by a perceived lack of information and attention that they have to go online to seek sympathy and advice, it not the patients' fault or the fault of people who try to help. As people here have said, it's the medical system.

It's also interesting to note, you haven't offered any material advice to the OP and instead focused your expertise on me who tried to sympathize and provide some information.

 

Beaks can and will speak for himself, but I think I know the reason why he has not offered any medical advice; he's not that stupid.



Mark

 

All that indignation and you still can't pay attention:

I did offer my sympathies and well wishes. Neither of us are opthalmologists so I am leaving the diagnoses to those with the proper education rather than wading into the thread armed with a Google Degree to second guess his medical team as if I know what I'm talking about.

Regards,
Andrew.

 

I'm sorry Andrew but I'm afraid you do not hide your petty intentions very well as they cloud your judgment.

Much of the public information placed on the Internet by professionals and by laymen alike is there for good reasons, to communicate with and to inform the Public. Aside from helping people with their concerns and interests, public information can actually take a lot of unnecessary strain off public services. Unrestricted information is not there only for the eyes of "...those with the proper education" as you snobbishly insist. It is there for anyone who can properly research and correctly understand the useful application of the information.

In this case, if you have paid attention to what I wrote you will see my educational background as an immunologist actually happens to qualify me, in your own words and snobbish standards, as someone "... with the proper education", not that it matters.

 

You fail to acknowledge that there's an important difference in tone between making information sources available and presenting information as if it is a diagnosis. Care must be taken to avoid the latter, as it can be dangerous to practice medicine on the internet - even those with proper medical degrees tend to avoid being too specific.

You can undermine a patient's confidence in their medical team and compliance with their prescriptions by offering competing diagnoses without a valid examination, without appropriate equipment, without full patient history, without the benefit of laboratory analysis, and without relevant experience. I'd expect a fellow scientist to be sensitive to such an issue and tread more carefully. Despite a reasonable understanding of the brain, you don't see me wading into various threads offering neurology assessments to patients, do you?

You can deflect all you like by calling my intentions petty or by painting me as a education snob, but such charges say far more about you than it does about me. Argue with yourself and proclaim victory if it pleases you - I've hopefully given folks context in which to frame your latest pontifications and that's sufficient. I'm out.

Regards,
Andrew.

Sent from my Nexus 5 using Tapatalk

 

FIFY.


Mark

 

It's OK, it's not you. I think Andrew and I have some baggage.

At any rate, I appreciate your telling more of your story. I have my own health issues, one of which is also a degenerative autoimmune condition which runs in my maternal family tree. It was confirmed by a rheumatologist. My other health issues often just complicate the picture when they also flare up.

I think for various reasons, many clinicians are uncomfortable when they don't have an immediate answer to a patient's problems. Those doctors are not into figuring out problems, they prefer to memorize symptoms, match them to conditions and/or prescribed treatments. Not all clinicians are like that though and perhaps your current specialist will try to dig down and figure out what's happening. Many lab tests are also part of a work-in-progress effort to develop better diagnostic tools because our current tests have limitations and don't always work. Your doctor will likely explain the context around your lab test results.

FWIW, one of my other health issues involved Borreliose (German for Lyme Disease) that I contracted when I was in Germany some 16 years ago. Doctors here generally do not know anything worthwhile about that disease and I had to endure ridicule and neglect until I researched the problem and located specialists who had actually treated patients with the disease; and those were not even patients with the European form of the illness. I had to treat myself using a protocol that had just been successfully studied in Sweden at the time. I became my own expert on my disease and the Canadian rheumatologist who took me on afterwards to track my progress respected me for what I did. You have similar doctors in the US. Some of them even risked being censured and sued by the medical community for treating patients with similar European treatment protocols.

The blurred vision in your affected eye MAY BE caused by superficial tissue damage to the epithelium of the eye. Imagine the epithelium to be damaged just like the scratched surface of a camera lens. It would cause blurred vision. IMO, you should use frequent applications of "LIQUID TEARS" to lubricate the eye, to soothe it as well as to avoid further abrasion to any injured tissue. If it's just the epithelium, it will help the tissue to recover. You can buy sterile liquid tears from any pharmacy.

IMO, it will also likely help if you apply an ice pack over the affected area for 15-20 minutes at a time, 3 times a day. Place a damp towel between your eye and the ice pack to moderate the cooling effect as you do not want your eye to be anywhere near freezing temperatures. If it feels uncomfortable, remove the ice pack or better still replace the cold wet towel with a fresh less-cold wet towel. Ice is one of the most effective ways of stopping or slowing inflammation and I suspect inflammation is causing the tissue damage from your auto-immune flare-up.

The other thing you can do is to take vitamin C. One 500 mg tablet twice a day with food is innocuous but will aid recovery. Vitamin C is one of the things your body uses to make the "glue" that binds together new tissue. What will also aid recovery is if you take daily "normal" doses of complete amino acids. It will supply the amino acids needed to rebuild damaged tissues. Regular diet is OK for regular nutrition, but it is inadequate when you are injured. That's why athletes take amino acid supplements, because those people injure their muscles every time they exercise.

I hope you will make a full recovery. Please keep us abreast!

 

I am here on the request of a fellow member. Eye going "Kablamo" is somewhat nonspecific. Sounds like you have conj injection. Blurriness could be caused by corneal edema, iritis, or macular edema (all are result of uveitis (autoimmune dz of the eye)). Did the ophtho say anything else about his findings?
With caveat about diagnosis over the internet, your condition sounds like Reiter's Syndrome. It also causes some cardiac issue but I'm not cardiology so you'll have to consult with one of the heart docs.
Was one of the test HLA B27? It's best to see rheum. This is a systemic condition and an eye doc is poorly trained to deal with this.
Good luck.
Addendum - saw your latest post after posting mine. Stem cell graft? Limbal stem cell? Do you have a surface dz or history of trauma to eye? The "contact lens" holding graph in place may be an amniotic membrane?

 

Deep breaths everybody...

To the OP: The internet is not a place to seek specific medical advice for an undiagnosed
condition. You wanted to vent about Labcorp, but maybe you asked for too much.

To 4th_gear: As well-intentioned your advice and information may be, I think you have gone
too far to recommend to the OP specific therapeutic regimens for a specific
condition whose diagnosis remains unknown to the readers of this thread. That
doesn't even get into the potential issue of practicing medicine without a
license. I think it would be more appropriate if you would offer all of your
suggestions in a more general way.

To the OP: You can PM me your contact info. and I would be happy to talk with you over the
phone and perhaps answer some general questions for you.

 

I'm sorry to learn of what you've been through but you have hit the nail on the head. No one's looking at the BIG PICTURE for you.

Before you read further, please understand that when I was discussing my health issues, I was just relating to you my problems. I wasn't hinting that you have what I have. I just happen to also suffer from a chronic degenerative autoimmune disease that runs in my family. And there's no reason to believe you have Lyme Disease because I was bitten by a tick in Eastern Germany and I saw the tick afterwards, not realizing Lyme Disease is endemic in (Central Europe) Germany.

My advice regarding "Liquid Tears", icing, vitamin C and amino acid supplements do not constitute treatment. That would be truly laughable. They are simply very prudent innocuous healthy practices that will give your body a bit of relief and help make it stronger.

You should have a family doctor who keeps tabs on all of your interactions with the specialists and your meds. Your family doctor should be the healthcare person who is looking at the big picture for you. Find yourself a good family doctor, someone who is willing to take on a patient with your health history. I once had some difficulty doing that myself, as prospective doctors would tell me they couldn't take me on after learning of my health history but I eventually did locate a good family doctor. Make this one of your most important tasks.

 

I've moved a few times in my life and had to find new family doctors each time but they've all stayed with me, past 10 years each time, until I moved. My last 2 family doctors were actually ladies in their 40s and 50s. They were very respectful, responsive and attentive. Perhaps older family doctors with a bit of history at their clinics will prove better choices.