cost to see a corneal specialist?

JasperKat

Hi,
wife's had problems with her eyes & been treated by an opthalmic dr locally for last 3yrs, now she's been told she's got corneal erosion & needs to see a corneal specialist.

her dr said if she referrs her it'll take months to be seen but she gave her a lettr to go to Victoria ENT A&E asking for them to refer her to a corneal specialist in the hope that it would be a quicker route.

The opthalmic dr in A&E said wife had blebhitis, gave her prescription for the same as she's had for last 3yrs & told her to come back nxt wk. Refused to referr her.

Has anyone any idea how much it'll cost to go privately? how would we go about it? we don't have a medical card, wife only works part-time & my savings from redundancy have run right out, so we're pretty skint & if it costs a fortune we'll have to borrow it from me ma-in-law which I'm dreading asking about.

thanks in advance of any help or advice

Cheers,
Jasper

JasperKat

update, just in case anyone else is trying to find out:

after 3 visits (one a wk) to the Victoria ENT A&E Dr who's insisted that my wife carry on with the same treatment she's been doing for 3 yrs her eyes are no different & this dr still refuses to refer her to anyone else, all she keeps saying to my wife is 'keep cleaning your eyes & putting in the (same) drops & ointment, it'll take a long time to clear up the infection'.

So in desperation, & my wife crying with the pain in her eyes, she went back to her GP who wrote a referral letter to Prof. Lorraine cassidy, we phoned her clinic for an appointment & were told 'public waiting list is min 12mths if it's urgent, 15-18mths for non-urgent cases', fax in the referral & it's assessed & appointment given.

We asked about going to her private clinic, we faxed the referral ltr & got a call to say Prof. Cassidy suggested one of two other Consultants (Mr Paul O'Brien was one & I can't recall the other)

We rang his clinic in Blackrock & after faxing the referral ltr, wife got a phone call offering an appt. next wk - cost €150.

Now we've just to try & get that money together....

Jasper

Medievalist

I'm in a very similar situation, so I really empathise with your poor wife . I just wanted to say, that although the prices are expensive, it pays to go private. After 5 years of eye problems (including the evilness that is blepharitis) I finally went to a private consultant. The difference was amazing! Instead of just shrugging his shoulders and giving me more drops, within 20 mins he had a treatment plan for the next 9 months! He also told me that I had been misdiagnosed previously and that the drops I had been using every 20 mins for the past 5 years were aggravating an underlying condition. Within a relatively short space of time I was noticing an improvement. Additional visits are cheaper than the first one and I only ever have to wait for a few weeks for an appointment.

So the moral is: it may be expensive, but will save a lot of time, hassle, pain and your wife's eye health in the long run!

I have my fingers crossed for both of you

Edit: obviously there may be some really good opthamologists working in the public HS too!

JasperKat

Medievalist, thank you so much for your support & helpful reply, it's really much appreciated.... sorry to hear of your own problems but delighted to hear that you've seen some improvement - long may it continue... :D:D

could i just ask who the specialist was you saw? are they based in dublin? are you still seeing them?

wife's appt is mid-day tomorrow, neither of us can wait... the times just dragging by....

thanks again,
jasper

Medievalist

It's always nice to talk to someone else who's going through it:). It can be very frustrating trying to explain to others just how bad and debilitating the condition is. If I had a euro for everytime someone said "sure your eyes don't look that red" I could afford to hire my own private specialist!

I found that once I realised it was chronic and not to expect a miracle cure it was easier to appreciate the smaller improvments. That being said, I'm of the stern opinion that if there is no improvment get a different opinion! Every doctor has their own set of experiences and hopefully your wife will find one that suits her.

I can PM you the details of my doc if you'd like? I'm not sure it's within forum rules to discuss it in thread.

Let me know how your wife gets on tomorrow! It's very exciting going to a new specialist...hope it works out and that you get a more detailed diagnosis!

JasperKat

...the specialists' diagnosis is....

she's got 3 spots of corneal erosion in the right eye, the cornea's outermost layer of epithelial cells is failing to attach to the underlying basement membrane which is why she's getting so much pain....
he didn't want to speculate on which of the other dr's was right/wrong, preferring to concentrate on treatment plan, which is.... :eek::eek::eek::eek::eek::eek:
a minor op to 'scrap' off (or smooth) the 3 spots;
cover it with a special contact lens for 2/3 days;
take painkillers because it'll be extremely painful whilst it's 'raw' & growing again;
after which the cells should have a smooth layer to adhere correctly to....
:eek:

He's very confident that this is the correct treatment & says she should have no more pain, the corneal erosions may re-occur some time in the future... the left eye has signs of the same but nothing needing any such treatment - yet.
I'm in shock 'cos I didn't think she'd need anything like that, she hasn't said much but I think she's still reeling from the thoughts of it...
Anyone else had this done? any thoughts; ideas or input very welcome... thanks in advance.
Jasper

Medievalist

Glad to hear she got a diagnosis...a pity it's so severe! Hope the proceedure goes well and that things start getting better

sophielc

Sorry to hear about your wife's troubles, has she had the procedure done yet?

I've had what sound as exactlty the same as your wife about 10 years ago. I was sent to the Mater private hospital and was on VHI at that time, I think the laser operation I had (PKT) cost IEP 600 at the time, but Vhi took care of everything and I didn't have to advance any money, although things might have changed since.

I agree that it is a very debilitating disease and it seems very hard to diagnose as I was left for years without anyone coming up with the correct diagnosis as well; I was starting to think I was the only one it happened to!

Anyway, I had PKT done in the right eye about 10 years ago; no more pain in this eye ever again but they did tell me at the time that I might get it in the other eye too at a later stage. I had no pain in my eyes for the next 4 years but soon after my second daughter was born it started happening to my left eye and became more frequent recently (3 times in the past year, the last time was January 31st, 2011). I had stopped working and went on the medical card since, also moved a few times in between so I have been telling every single doctor I went to what happened before in the right eye and that this was probably the same thing now in my left eye but for some reason all they kept telling me was that I had herpes in the left: they couldn't see a tear until last January when they decided that I had no herpes but I had a recurrent corneal erosion (imagine my frustration: "I told you so!"). This was in the optical depatment in the UCHG (Galway) where I was seen by what seems like every single eye doctor and even a bunch of medical students (felt like a monkey in a zoo that time when everyone was shown into the room to look into my eye in quick succession).

So it was in the UCHG that they decided to sent me in for a PKT in the Galway Clinic. I had this done (in the left eye this time) last Tuesday. The consultant was Dr Kinsella. It was done very quickly and this time they gave me some anaestetic eye drops to take home, which saved my life (along with Chloromycetin, some tablets and even sleeping pills for the first night).

I have to add that I am single with 2 children and anytime my eye used to get this excruciatingly sore I still had to get up in the morning and make sure my kids went to school; my neighbours walked them to and back from school but when I could hardly pour a bowl of cereals for a child, it was very hard to get through one day. It used to be so painful I think I'd rather have given birth again and sometimes I even wondered if I would be better off dead!

Anyway, now hopefully it's all over, I hope your wife has had her operation and that she's feeling better at last.

lastlaugh

JasperKat wrote: »

Hi,
The opthalmic dr in A&E said wife had blebhitis, gave her prescription for the same as she's had for last 3yrs & told her to come back nxt wk. Refused to referr her.
Jasper

Hi Jasper,
Sorry to hear of your wifes eye problems. Reading this really annoys me. As far as I'm concerned your wife either should have been given an appropriate perscription/treatment to address her corneal erosions, or, if it was the case that the DR in A&E wasn't sure how to deal with it, ask a colleage for a second opinion or refer her to the coneal clinic, ASAP, ie, the next day.

JasperKat wrote: »

update, just in case anyone else is trying to find out:

after 3 visits (one a wk) to the Victoria ENT A&E Dr who's insisted that my wife carry on with the same treatment she's been doing for 3 yrs her eyes are no different & this dr still refuses to refer her to anyone else, all she keeps saying to my wife is 'keep cleaning your eyes & putting in the (same) drops & ointment, it'll take a long time to clear up the infection'..

It wasn't an Asian female DR with glasses by any chance?
I'm not sure if I'm breaching any forum rules but I was in the A&E in the Eye & Ear recently and was very unhappy with the differing perscription/opinions of a few DRs there.

JasperKat wrote: »

So in desperation, & my wife crying with the pain in her eyes, she went back to her GP who wrote a referral letter to Prof. Lorraine cassidy, we phoned her clinic for an appointment & were told 'public waiting list is min 12mths if it's urgent, 15-18mths for non-urgent cases', fax in the referral & it's assessed & appointment given.

How on earth can they expect an 'urgent' case to wait 12 months?
TBH, I'd say all the best DRs leave the public sector to go private. The DRs in A&E work ridiculously long hours.

JasperKat wrote: »

...the specialists' diagnosis is....

she's got 3 spots of corneal erosion in the right eye, the cornea's outermost layer of epithelial cells is failing to attach to the underlying basement membrane which is why she's getting so much pain....
he didn't want to speculate on which of the other dr's was right/wrong, preferring to concentrate on treatment plan, which is.... :eek::eek::eek::eek::eek::eek:
a minor op to 'scrap' off (or smooth) the 3 spots;
cover it with a special contact lens for 2/3 days;
take painkillers because it'll be extremely painful whilst it's 'raw' & growing again;

I'd be happy with someone who knows what they are talking about and has a positive treatment plan. I know from experience it's the not knowing and fear of things getting worse that can cause the most stress.

sophielc wrote: »

I had stopped working and went on the medical card since, also moved a few times in between so I have been telling every single doctor I went to what happened before in the right eye and that this was probably the same thing now in my left eye but for some reason all they kept telling me was that I had herpes in the left:

I really can't see how any competant opthamologist could misdignose ocular herpes, and if they did say it was, did they give any treatment for it?!

Hope things are better now...

JasperKat

Sorry for not updating this post (I found another job but it's working all kinds a funny hrs, but it's better than nothing, i don't get on boards much tho')

Wife had the op in the Victoria ENT, just as the dr had described it, with a special lens fitted to protect it for a week, he gave her drops to help the pain but it was excruciatingly painful for 3 days. She went back to his surgery for the lens to be removed & dr said everything looked good & the layer had grown back so it was all ok.

She's been back to the clinic for a follow-up but dr says she doesn't need any further treatment in that eye unless the problem flares up again. The same is happening in the other eye but it's not nearly as bad & therefore the dr says it's not worth operating on. Either way wife's happy that its all ok & no pain, she says she didn't realise just how bad it was till it was gone!

Sophie, I'm very sorry to hear of your trouble & I sincerely hope it's sorted out for you.

Lastlaugh:
on the 2nd of 3 visits to A&E wife asked for another opinion by a different consultant or dr & was told that it wasn't possible because she (this woman dr) was responsible for her treatment & that only if the treatment didn't appear to be making any difference the next appt. she would 'consider' getting a colleague to look into my wife's eyes. Guess what? the next wk the same dr argued that there was improvement but actually my wife was in far more pain than before & refused point blank to refer her to anyone else or get another opinion. that's what actually caused my wife to decide to go back to her gp, the eyes were both getting worse not better....

'Asian female DR with glasses' describes her perfectly !

Thankfully the wife is a lot happier now, & so am I !!!:D:D:D:D
jasper

lemmno

If by any chance any of you see this, can you pm me the details of the docs that actually helped you please? I've been getting corneal erosions for 18 months now and I'm exhausted. I need help badly. Thank you so much.

antonymous

lemmno wrote: »

If by any chance any of you see this, can you pm me the details of the docs that actually helped you please? I've been getting corneal erosions for 18 months now and I'm exhausted. I need help badly. Thank you so much.

hi there, sorry to bother you, did you get an answer on this

lemmno

antonymous wrote: »

hi there, sorry to bother you, did you get an answer on this

Nothing yet anyway