Couple questions for you. I saw the ophthalmologist yesterday and after going through the imaging, eye pressure, prescription check, field of vision testing and I think that was it. When he went through the imaging, he showed me the spots where they check for buildup spots and said mine were great, and that everything looked great. Then he said there was MORE testing but they didn’t have the tools in house and that I needed to go to a retina specialist group.
Any inclination how imperative the additional is to have? I need to confirm this group is in network to start but I start getting punchy when nothing is transparent, I have to take multiple afternoons off, get my eyes dilated twice, and pay the extra bills. Im going to send my rheum a message too and see if what was done is sufficient for them or not as well.
Wow, that’s way more than was being done back when I was on plaquenil. Opthalmology has advanced a lot since then–that was in 1998. Other than a routine vision exam and glaucoma test, I had a visual field test. That was the only way to check for plaquenil damage back then.
I’ll be curious to see the response you get. Not that I am likely to go on plaquenil again, but my daughter may need to at some point.
I’ll keep you posted. The rheums office said they will follow up with exactly what’s been done so far.
Everyone minus the inside imaging they do at the optometrist so I’m not sure what all else is needed if we got the retina imaging. Which we did in some capacity
The current standard of care is what I listed above: the visual field test as well as an OCT (optical coherence tomography) test. Which sounds like what the ophthalmologist did. We have a routine form we send to rheumatology that specifically lists those two things (along with a dilated eye exam) because that is what rheum wants to know.
If all results are normal, I have no idea why he would refer you to another ophthalmologist (retinal specialist) .
Most retinal cameras these days are equipped with a fundus autofluorescence (FAF) feature, but that’s not one of the things that is considered “required” for plaquenil monitoring, although most offices will do it anyway because it can still provide valuable information. There is some debate on the validity for plaquenil monitoring. But that’s not any special tool.
I have all 3 of those things in my office: OCT, VF, and FAF imaging.
So I guess it would depend on what the “extra testing” is. I can’t really fathom what that would be, unless they didn’t have an OCT for some reason … although I’ve never heard of an ophthalmologist not having one.
If you can find out details on exactly what it’s called they want you to have, that may be more helpful.
Technology is always changing and evolving.
Even the OCT technology has changed from when it first came out. First it was time domain. Now it’s spectral domain (current standard for plaquenil). Newest ones are swept source now, and there’s still some debate on what is “better” for plaquenil monitoring.
We never used to have FAF imaging available on a basic fundus camera. Now, I honestly don’t think you can get a camera without it.
It’s certainly incredible what these instruments allows us to image and examine!!! And how much SOONER we can catch things.
