P.E.I. ophthalmologists encouraging eye checks to prevent vision loss
'It is sad to say you came a bit too late'
Ophthalmologists at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Charlottetown are urging Islanders to get their eyes checked to prevent serious health problems that could lead to vision loss.
"It is sad to say you came a bit too late. I don't want to say that. I don't want to say it to anyone," said Dr. Ibrahim Elaraoud. "I feel vision is too precious."
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Still, this is something Elaraoud said he sees every week — cases where the problem could have been corrected or, at least, resulted in a less serious outcome if it was detected earlier. Unfortunately, some patients wait too long to get their symptoms checked.
"It's not that we will say we give up on you," he said.
"But we would much rather give you the best outcome and the best outcome for you will be when you come sooner."
Conditions to watch for
There are some specific eye conditions that are top of mind in the hospital: macular degeneration, diabetic retinopathy, glaucoma and retinal detachment.
The conditions are serious, said ophthalmologist Dr. Gerry O'Hanley. He explained that macular degeneration can start out as distortions. Maybe light poles look a little crooked in the middle or a square seems misshaped. But without treatment — it can be "severely disabling."
"It's like the Timbit missing out of the doughnut," he said. "You can't see faces, you can't read, you can't drive a car."
Glaucoma, on the other hand, he called the "silent marauder of sight."
"It's often painless, it has to do with too high pressure, and it kills the nerve in the eye if it's left too long."
Retinal detachment is less common. O'Hanley compared it to jello that's been sitting in a bowl too long and eventually shrinks leaving a little puddle. It's similar to your eye. He said the small floater shapes that appear in your vision happen when the vitreous gel condenses and shrinks away from the inner lining.
"Sometimes it tears a hole in there just like a vinyl liner in a swimming pool and you pull a little hole in one little spot all of a sudden the whole liner detaches," he said.
New retina surgery machine
A new machine at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital is helping repair detached retinas. It's called a vitrectomy machine and was purchased with the help of the Queen Elizabeth Hospital Foundation.
"We've been managing to use it almost on a daily basis to try to help the Islanders keep their eyesight," said Elaraoud.
"Today we operated on about five patients that otherwise would have had to travel multiple visits to other provinces and one of them is an emergency that we had to do within 24 hours."
The goal is ultimately to keep everyone as healthy as possible. To do that, Elaraoud stressed the importance of following up on any symptoms that may arise.
"If your brain said to you like yeah, I might have those floaters. Or maybe my family had someone who has glaucoma. Or the lines are not straight to me ... I think that's enough for you to go and see someone."
And, O'Hanley said, timing is everything.
"It's much more frustrating to be faced with a situation that's three months too late than it is to deal with the situation which, while serious, we have a chance of trying to make things better."