Anyone Ever Had Optic Neuritis?

[MissCommando]

My husband went to the Optician about 2 weeks ago, she thinks he has some optic neuritis in one eye. She sent a fax to the eye hospital saying urgent but we only received a letter yesterday saying he can now phone to make an appt.

In between this time, my husband had an appt with his Neurologist who looked in his eye for about 30-40 seconds. This was in the light and he still had his glasses on. The Neurologist said he couldn't see any sign of it from that examination lol. He said that because my husband only gets pain in the eye and not blurred vision, it's probably just migraine?

About 10 years ago, my husband had suspected optic neuritis and it did go.
The past couple of days, he has suffered with slight blurred vision in the eye.

I'm rubbish at writing posts so hope this makes sense. Have you ever suffered from it and if so, what did they do about it?

Many thanks.

[Sqad]

Not an easy question to answer and if i remember correctly (I apologise if i am wrong), your husband has a muscle wasting disorder which could explain the diagnosis by your Neurologist and the conflict with the Optician.

No, I have never had Optic Neuritis personally, but i have always valued the opinion of ABer username York 333.

[york310]

Thanks Sqad although I may not be much help on this as further information would be needed such as history of symptoms, medical history, ophthalmic history etc.

First of all there are several underlying causes of optic neuritis some of which warrant immediate intervention. Optic neuritis often has marked changes to the optic nerve head when looking inside the eye and other times no visible abnormalities like retro bulbar optic neuritis. The main presenting symptoms are reduced vision, eye pain (often with movement) and reduced colour definition noticed when comparing the affected and unaffected eye.

The difficulty with a faxed referral is that the decision about the referral speed would be determined accuracy of the tentative diagnosis and extent of the clinical findings on the report. I would prefer an urgent referral to be via telephone with the patient to take the letter to the appointment.

The hospital eye clinics often have different degrees of urgency with 'immediate' referrals being the same day such as retinal detachment and acute glaucoma. An 'urgent' referral may be to be seen within two weeks at the urgent referral clinic such as wet AMD. Other referrals, like catracts etc, may be classed as routine which in some areas could be 12 weeks

[MissCommando]

Thank you both for your responses & apologies for my late reply.

Well Sqad, he doesn't have an official diagnosis. Neurologist said at this moment in time, he can't make a diagnosis and it may be the case that they never reach one. His GP seems to think it's more than likely to be MS (as he has most of the symptoms but has the awful twitching/cramping of muscles). She said it can take a few years to show up though in tests.

Luckily my husband's Uncle (a GP) is going to chase his appt up this week. I will let you know if he does, indeed have optic neuritis. He's had a lot of pain the past few days around that eye.

York, the optician did a colour test thing and he couldn't differentiate between the colours. It wasn't the normal colour blindness test, it was more like dots that he had to look at.

Thank you both very much x