PianoWow

Okay, this is ridiculous. I’m in my mid-20s. And I have gray hair. Not just a strand or two, either. I have lots of gray hairs speckled throughout my hair.

What is even more upsetting is the way I found out. I was out on a date, and the girl I was with was looking at my hair, and said, “wow, you’re going to gray early.”

I replied, “What are you talking about?”

“You have gray hair!”

“No, it just looks gray because of the way the light is reflecting off it.”

“No, that’s gray hair. You didn’t know you had gray hair?”

I was in denial for another hour, until I saw a mirror. I ran my fingers through my hair, and sure enough, many, many gray hairs were living right next to all the brown ones I’m used to seeing. I had to really get up close to notice them.

I started debating as to whether or not to get rid of them. Dying hair is ongoing, life-long process. I don’t even like to brush my hair; some times I cut it short enough that it requires no styling in the morning. So dying it is out of the question.

Depressed, I called my mom. She informed me of a cousin of mine who had a full head of gray hair at my age. Things could be worse. It didn’t make me feel too much better. She also told me my dad has similar hairs on his head. I had never noticed. Maybe people won’t notice mine, either. I can only hope.

Well, after my appointment this week with my ophthalmologist, it is confirmed that I do not, in fact, have glaucoma. That is a big relief. But I’m sort of upset about all this. I’ve been to three different doctors, 6 different appointments over the past few months. And now I’m paying the bill. I’m paying doctors that scared me into thinking I had something I didn’t, and then proved that I actually didn’t have it.

I’m not paranoid. I realize they were just doing their job. I’m not saying they did this on purpose. But, the circumstances weren’t exactly fun to deal with.

I go back to my ophthalmologist next year for sort of annual monitoring. Because the pressure is a little high, I still need to have a specialist take a look every year. When my optical nerve starts showing signs of damage (if it does), I’ll have glaucoma, and need to start using eye drops every day. I hope that doesn’t happen. I don’t like eye drops.

I have been back to one eye doctor or another two different times since writing this post. My latest appointment, with an ophthalmologist, was actually really positive. I may not have glaucoma after all. The results were always mixed, but leaning more towards having glaucoma. He seemed to think otherwise.

While the results were positive, the experience was not. I had a really bad headache that day, and was feeling somewhat nauseous going into the office. The tests and probes and bright lights and whatnot just made it worse. I almost threw up twice into his garbage can. Humiliating!

But I was able to walk away with good news. So that made it worthwhile I suppose. I also learned something today that surprised me. I found out that holding your breath can artificially inflate an eye pressure reading score. Perhaps some of my high eye pressure readings were skewed because I was holding my breath in anticipation of that puff of air, or the blue ring touching my eye. I had no idea. Also, squeezing the corners of your eyes together, like you do when you smile or squint, can also make the readings high.

He pointed his bright lights into my eyes, and examined my optic nerve. He didn’t see any damage. He wants to take a closer look next time, with my eyes dilated. That means I won’t be able to drive myself home. A friend will take me. Also, I’ll have to repeat the visual field test. If I pass, that will be the final proof that I don’t have anything wrong with me.

I went to the eye doctor not too long ago, and they had some bad news for me. I have glaucoma. The last time I had an eye exam was quite a while ago, and my eye pressure was never an issue. But, a lot can happen in 5 years, or however long it’s been since I went last. I have some field of vision degradation and abonormal pressure in my right eye.

The field of vision problem is unnoticeable. If I hadn’t taken the test, I would have never known. Apparently, without testing, it is impossible for me to know that I have it until it progresses to tunnel-vision like symptoms. As long as I treat it, it will never progress that far.

Treatment involves eye drops taken daily. I have a follow-up in a couple of weeks to confirm. After that, it seems I may start taking Xalatan daily. I’m really not looking forward to that, but I suppose I’ll get used to it.

Marijuana has also been shown to treat glaucoma, if taken daily, much like eye drops. There are currently 12 US states (and many other countries) that allow the medical use of marijuana. I don’t happen to live in one of them. That, alone, is obviously not reason enough to move. I’m not sure I want to take that much time out of my day to treat glaucoma anyway. Eye drops are much faster, and more convenient. Also, I’m not sure how long-term treatment would work with marijuana. In drug trials, patients who smoked, but didn’t get high, showed no improvement in intraocular eye pressure. Like any drug, a tolerance would be built to marijuana, eliminating the high, and possibly the treatment. But I’m no doctor, and wouldn’t want to speculate on such things.