Eyes wide shut

It’s nothing like an eye exam to help you see things clearly. In November of last year, my wife, Erika, went in for a routine eye exam, needing new contact lenses and glasses, and came out with an overpowered prescription, inflamed eye ducts, corneal abrasion and inflammation, photophobia, and an overall distrust for the field of eye care. But who could blame her?

Well, her eye doctors, that’s who.

July is National Eye Injury Prevention month, and it’s good practice to keep your eyes safe, whether by eating foods known to maintain healthy eyes or wearing sunglasses in order to reduce your chances of developing cataracts from UV damage. But as my wife and I learned, it’s even better to practice prudence when selecting an eye care physician, who is paid to go poking around inside your eyes. (If that’s not reason enough, I don’t know what is.)

Looking into my wife’s eyes 10 minutes after administering her dilation drops, Dr. Jane Smith (not her real name) said excitedly, “Oh, yes, you’re ready. Come on back.” And she led my wife away enthused, like one might lead a child to a carnival ride, which, it turns out, is exactly what my wife ended up on. I call it the Tear Jerker.

Not long after, my wife emerged from the examination room, blinking and shielding her eyes, with a clean bill of eye health and a roll-up pair of sunglasses. Dr. Smith informed my wife that the dilation drops would wear off in few hours and all would back to normal. It’s been eight months, and my wife is still waiting for all to return to normal.

The first indication that something was wrong came when a few hours passed, and my wife’s sensitivity to light increased to the point that even the little red lamplight on the coffee maker was too bright for her to look at. Then came headaches—migraines—and she began experiencing of what she described as a “shadowy brightness” in her right eye’s field of vision, along with flashing lights and intense eye strain in both eyes. We spent the remainder of the evening and night in complete darkness.

The next day, my wife woke no better, only now her ailments were made worse by the daylight. I called the doctor’s office to report her condition and was told that the lighter the eye color, the longer the dilation drops will be effective, in some cases for up to 24 hours, which was, according to the doctor, the likely cause, as my wife has very light blue eyes. I was also told that the headaches were just a side effect to the light sensitivity and they would pass, but the cause of the “shadowy brightness” was abnormal and yet to be determined. I scheduled a follow-up appointment for the next evening.

The doctor performed a series of tests on my wife’s eyes and afterwards, sat back and sighed, openly mystified by my wife’s troubles. The exam did indicate that my wife’s right eye, more than 72 hours after the dilation drops were administered, still showed signs of dilation based on the pupil’s slow response to a flashlight test. My wife expressed her concern that perhaps dilating the eyes then shining bright light inside them damaged them. The doctor’s response was that in no way can shining bright light in fully dilated eyes harm them. It’s done every day.

The doctor’s final prognosis was that my wife’s ailments were a matter of coincidence, a hidden problem that decided to show itself on the same day she got her exam. “You’d be surprised how common this coincidence is,” the doctor said. You should see a neuroophthalmologist and a retina specialist, the doctor told my wife.

Still stumped by my wife’s ailments, the doctor did say one thing before we left the office that both my wife and I firmly believed. “I’m sorry I don’t know what else to say. I’m not an expert.”

With no real answers and with that closing statement, my wife was left very literally in the dark.

An exam by another more trusted doctor (and more importantly, an acquaintance of ours) revealed that as a result of the dilation drops, my wife suffered corneal abrasion and inflammation of her eye ducts, conditions that combined to produce photophobia, which is not a “fear of light” but extreme sensitivity to light, something there is no cure for and can last a few days to years.

Our own research determined that many people suffered similar or exact ailments after an eye dilation. And many of these people were told by their eye-care professional, “It’s just coincidence.”

My wife is just now returning to normal after months of being unable to turn on household lights, to go outside during the daylight or nighttime without experiencing severe pain from natural and artificial light, to work without experiencing severe pain, and to living her life in general without experiencing severe pain. The grand total for the eye exam was $109.00 (which was refunded), months of her life, emotional distress (to say the least), and thousands in lost wages.

As my father always said, “You never want to take any chances with your eyes. You only have two of them.”

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