Distressed & worried about macular degeneration

[MollyHH]

Hi all, I had an eye test on Thursday and the optician has made a non urgent referral for me to have further test. She said my retinas look different to each other. She said this could be normal for me as I had surgery for a lazy eye as a child. On the referral she wrote ‘possible changes in macular area L/R.’ When I do the Amsler test it’s normal. But I do get a little hazy area in my central vision when I do close work and then try to focus further again. I am not coping well at all, I am in such a state and can’t see how this can NOT be a diagnosis of amd. I just can’t seem to cope, am in tears all the time, can anyone help? I’d be so grateful. X

[lofwyr]

Diagnosing ourselves before a professional can do it is the heart of HA. Try not to do that, it is hard I know. I am busy right now trying to convince myself I don't have basal cell carcinoma all over the bridge of my nose, when I might. I, of course, in the back of my mind, anticipate a huge, nose removing surgery with reconstructive surgery after. Or that maybe I am the 1 in 6000 that has a mestasis of BCC. I have symptoms of BCC, and he is in fact biopsying the sight in a couple weeks, but in the mean time I am trying to hold off on the doom and gloom. Easier said than done with HA.

My dermatologist told me he thinks it is either BCC or actinic keratosis (the pre cancer), two diagnosis of wildly different treatments. Of course, my HA brain discounts entirely the potential, and easily treated pre cancer diagnosis, and jumps straight to the worst case scenario.

That should sound familiar to you, as you did the same thing. Non urgent referral and her saying it could be normal for you are both things you swept aside in favor of macular degeneration.

But the truth is, I have never been right. Not once. I have been on this site for years and years, and never been correct in what I thought I had. Most other people will tell you the same thing. I think perhaps as few as three of four people out of the thousands who have visited this site had diseases they thought they did, and from my understanding they all survived and are doing well. There are threads devoted to "what people thought they had and didn't" and this place is awash in medical miracles.

So, with that in mind, let the medical professionals do what they do, try to relax, and deal with the problems as they become actual, real problems. Try to quit doing what I am trying to quit doing and assuming you are a walking blind person, and I will try and quit assuming I am going to lose my nose in a couple weeks.

I am probably not right, and you are also probably not right.

And for once, it is good to be wrong.