In this post I am going to tell you about Diego’s possible glaucoma diagnosis.
Ever since Diego underwent his ophthalmological check-ups in the medical check-ups at Iberdrola, he had slightly high eye pressure.
He underwent surgery for myopia and astigmatism in 2017. After the operation, they told him that he should have an annual vision check-up and, above all, be aware of the eye pressure because since they had reduced the thickness of the cornea, the values of the eye pressure were going to be lower, so they were no longer reliable.
In the summer of 2022, we did the annual ophthalmological check-up at the Tecma Clinic and in the field of vision exam it appeared that it was not very well in the lower part of the right eye.
They told him that it was nothing to worry about and that they would see him next year.
In Porto we asked the family doctor to make an appointment with the ophthalmologist since he had to do the annual check-up.
We went to the consultation on July 3, and they did several tests, many more than they would have done with the public health system in Spain.
After having done all the tests and after the doctor looked inside his eye several times, they told him that he probably had glaucoma and that they needed to do more exhaustive tests to be able to give a definitive diagnosis.
I asked the doctor if there was a possibility that it was not glaucoma. She told me that what was clear is that there was something wrong with Diego’s eyes; that it was almost certainly glaucoma but that he should do more tests.
At the moment she did not prescribed any medication and she set the appointment for the beginning of August and told him that the letter would arrive with the date for the tests.
The letter reached us two days later and they gave him an appointment for the following week.
Here I must highlight several very important things.
First of all, the speed of making an appointment with the specialist and that, at the same time, they did all the routine exams.
In Spain, this would have taken more than a year.
Second, realize that there is something wrong. It seems a bit stupid, but I’m sure that in Spain they would have kept telling him that everything was fine until he was already half blind and there was no going back.
Thirdly, the speed to do the follow-up exams and the new consultation with the doctor.
In Spain it would have taken another year or two.
Our thought was “thank goodness that this has happened to us with the public health of Portugal”.
On July 11 at 10AM, he had an appointment at the São João Hospital to undergo comprehensive examinations.
On August 8 we went to the appointment with the specialist.
She again measured his eye pressure and did several checkups.
She told us that the second field of vision test had gone perfectly and that for now he was fine and did not need any medication.
My question was, does he have glaucoma or not?
The doctor explained that glaucoma is not detected in a single consultation and is generally detected after a follow-up period and gave him a new appointment within 6 months.
Glaucoma is a disease that progressively degenerates the optic nerve and that is why it takes time to detect it.
The first study of the field of vision gave a bad result because eyes that have or have had myopia have a tilted optic nerve, so the result of a normal visual field test will always give something wrong.
But then, the specific field of vision test for glaucoma detection had gone well. So now there was nothing to worry about.
Since we went to the first consultation Diego had been complaining that his vision was a bit blurry in his right eye; the doctor examined him and said that he had a bit of astigmatism, but that his vision was still 100%.
I asked her how it was possible if he had had surgery and she explained that they never fix the 100% and in Diego’s case, he had some residual astigmatism.
The next consultation is in February 2024, and I will post the news here.