Central Serous Retinopathy ~ The Follow Up

A lot of folks land here on Gust Gab when they are searching the interwebs for Central Serous Retinopathy.

We know how THAT goes...because this past April, when my husband was diagnosed with CSR (Central Serous Retinopathy) - we too searched and googled and searched and googled...

There isn't much info out there...

Which is why it was important to us to get out OUR information...

I never did have the hubs follow up his first 'guest post' regarding his CSR...

It gradually got better - and since he could see pretty well, life seemed to get even busier...
in the meantime, we have gotten quite a few comments & emails from other folks across the country, the world even...who have also been diagnosed with the mystery that is CSR...

Ladies and Gentlemen of the interwebs...
I bring you the 2nd guest post of the hubs...

CSR – The follow-up. 7 months since diagnosis. 3.5 months since last exam.

I should have done this post months ago.

I had my last eye exam for the CSR in my left eye in mid July. I had noticed on my own that my vision was much improved since my last exam about 5 weeks earlier. They rated my eye 20-25 without correction so it had improved since my last visit. The scans came back and showed that the fluid was almost gone. Instead of any type of mountain type shape of the retina it was straight. So, it was missing the little indent that a normal one has, but was still moving in the right direction.

It’s almost November now and I would say my vision in my left eye has again improved a little. It isn’t as strong as my right eye, but I would guess it's almost 20/20. I don’t know if that eye ever was as strong as my right eye or not. I never had a reason to check, so I think it’s possible that my vision may be as good as it was before. Maybe not. I’ve heard and read that the vision in the CSR eye may never be as good as it once was. It doesn’t prevent me from doing anything and at this point I don’t notice unless I cover my good eye and try to read some tiny print.
Just before my last visit I started to notice ‘floaters’ in my right eye (the good eye). Floaters are from the center of the eye that is sort of a gel turning to fluid as you age. Sometimes a piece of the gel part breaks loose and floats around in the liquid part. I probably had them for years and never noticed them until this whole thing. Anyway, the Dr was able to check that out while I was there as well. I was told it was unrelated to the CSR. He also checked out my eye and as long as I wasn’t seeing flashing lights, that it shouldn’t be a big concern. He said sometimes gravity takes them down out of sight vision and they go away or become less noticeable. Sometimes they don’t go away. So far, I still have them. I actually have them in both eyes. I have a larger one in my right eye that passes through the middle of my line of sight. So, that is the one I notice the most. On sunny days, they cast shadows, so seems like there are many more of them. Sunglasses help quite a bit, so I wear them as often as I can. Not like a rockstar, but I just try to be more careful to protect my eyes and it helps to hide the floaters.

I still have some trouble with vision in my left eye. I mostly notice it when I’m tired and at night. Lights can get stretched or I get sort of a halo effect around lights.

I’ve started exercising again. I’ve read and received advice to be careful with excessive exercise or pushing your body to hard. For those that know me, I’m far from an athlete or a fitness freak, but I do like to stay active. When I got diagnosed with CSR for the first time, I had been training for a 5k and had just started running about 4 miles a few times a week. So, that piece of information certainly made sense. After a few small runs I had a 5k event coming up so I wanted to try one on my own before the big day. I had to push pretty hard since I’m not a great distance runner and hadn’t run for a long time. Afterwards, the vision in my left eye seemed to be blurry and I was a little concerned I had pushed too hard. The next morning my vision was fine and I took it easy for a few days. I’m not sure if I got sweat in my eyes or I really did push too hard, but my vision has been fine since then. I was able to run a 5k a few weeks later without issue. I also ran one last week without any problems. I do a moderate workout for 30-60 minutes 3 times a week and haven’t had any concerns.

So, there you have it...
If you've been diagnosed with CSR - There is hope for you - even without surgery. We were told right away that Rob might need surgery, and that the way the Central Serous Retinopathy was affecting his eye, he'd be a great candidate for surgery - if it came to that.

(Well hello there $5000 deductible!)

Alas, Rob was able to manage his CSR with just a handful of regular appointments at the Vitreoretinal Surgeon's office and come out on the other side unscathed.
He had to lay off the exercise, I had to nag less...but at this point - we have mostly put it all behind us.
Now, here's hoping he doesn't have a reoccurance - which we hear is common.

I spy, with my little eye...Central Serous Retinopathy

*** If you are landing here, because you are googling info about CSR, you can read the follow up post HERE! ***

Ladies & Gentleman...Please welcome *the hubs* ~

Three and a half years ago when I started this blog, I thought it would be our blog, & it is ours, but I thought that we'd take turns writing posts...and both be contributing writers if you will!
Today, I bring you his first guest post...
*****

I guess this is my first official blog post.

I haven’t really felt the need since my wife does such a wonderful job of documenting the big events, & the small ones for that matter. I decided to do this post mostly for others that are looking for any information on Central Serous Retinopathy.

April 2nd, I distinctly remember having issues with my depth perception. I dismissed it to the weird patterns the late snow melt had left on the lawns. It had happened a few times so I mentioned it to Darcie, but didn’t think much more about it.

2 days later I was back at work, & I immediately noticed that my monitor didn’t look quite right. Out of curiosity, I covered my eyes one at a time to see what would happen. When I covered my right eye, I could tell everything was blurry and smaller. I figured that perhaps I needed glasses, however, the one weird thing I noticed was that colors didn’t even look the same. Well, I’ve never needed glasses or contacts, so that must fix all of that right?!?

Fast forward to Friday of that week where I found myself having my first eye exam ever. (If you don’t count the ones they give you at the DMV that is) At age… um early 30’s??? Ok, I guess 34 in case someone is actually reading this for research.

My first eye exam. I tried reading the lines… right eye perfect 20/20 – left eye not so much. They tried different lenses, different sizes & even different colors. No go, still couldn’t see.
The eye doctor takes a peek into my dilated eye balls and says something like "Well I see some fluid in there & your other symptoms sound like you have Central Serous Retinopathy." He wanted me to see a specialist, but no big hurry. This condition can last a few months and if they persist, can be treated with laser surgery.

Ok, I'm thinking, I will try not to panic since I can’t see out of my eye & seeing as how my employment consists of looking at a computer screen all day writing queries and trying to identify things as mundane as one character that is out of place. Darcie was trying not to worry about the things she sees come across her desk every day, you know, things like tumors behind the eye and other not-so-fun stuff.

Lucky me, they could get me in the following Monday. I go from no exams to having them on back to back working days. I guess the VitreoRetinal Specialists don’t mess around either cause their drops sting & my eyes were dilated in seconds, not minutes. And...they stayed that way for a couple of days! They did the same reading tests as the regular eye doc & a few new tricks. First, I had a type of scan where they took a look at the different layers of the eye. Cool enough.
The Vitreoretinal Surgeon confirms the CSR (Central Serous Retinopathy) diagnosis. He then shows me the scans of my good eye and bad eye. Good eye looks like a flat line with a little dip in the middle. Bad eye looks like a giant mountain – far from being flat due to the fluid that has pushed it up.

Well, just for fun let’s do the dye test. I was expecting this since it was mentioned in all the material on CSR that I read – as little as there was. Now comes the injection of the fluorescent dye that will show up in the photos of my eye. The dye will show the specialist where my eye is leaking. Lucky for me – I was a “young” person so they were going to just give me a half dose. The nice thing is that it would be less time to work through the system. They warned me that my urine would be bright florescent yellow, and they weren’t kidding. (To date, that has been the coolest part!) So, they inject the orange dye & then take pictures of the eye a couple times each minute tracking the changes. These pictures have a flash, so there was a little bit of sensitivity having a few dozen pics of my eyes done about ¼ inch from the pupil.

The pictures come back from the dye test. My least favorite comment comes out of dr’s mouth “oh, this is interesting” – I’m pretty freaked out at this point. Turns out I have not one leak, but two leaks. Great, now I have two spots to worry about!

So now what? Treatment. Same as what I had heard before. Laser is possible and luckily where my retinal leaks are, I am a good candidate for laser surgery. I guess some spots are in a place where they can’t be worked on via laser surgery. For many cases this will heal on its own, but could take a month or three. So, go home and don’t worry about it and go on with your life. No restrictions, no medicine, no PT, nothing.

I started a diary to track the changes. The only articles I had seen on-line were mostly jaded individuals that had waited too long to have their eyes looked at or had other issues I don’t know. The little bit of research I did, sounded like if the retina is separated by the fluid for too long (several months) the retina itself will become damaged and even after laser surgery full version can not be restored. Of course, laser surgery itself has its own risk, but at some point it becomes a needed procedure to save the retina.

The diary of my changes became very repetitive.

“No Change” every day.

Then I went to weekly and “no change” have been my only entries.

I can say the days following my second eye exam my vision was the worst it has ever been. I don’t know if the CSR was the cause or the exams or both. My vision near & far was blurry & distorted. Slowly that improved to about the point it was before I went into my first exam.

Work was a bit difficult to adjust to. After a few days I decided that it would be worth trying to increase the font on the monitor. That has seemed to help greatly. The only time I really notice the CSR symptoms is when I try to focus on small (aka, regular) print. Novels, newspapers, pc, etc. Why do the waiting room in the eye doctor's offices offer one million magazines that I can’t read while waiting with my dilated eyes? Maybe a TV or some headphones or something. Or at least a magnifying glass as I wait an hour (or longer) to see my dr.

The Vitreoretinal Surgeon had said to come back on May 16th if my vision wasn’t symptom free. I was so hoping that I would not have to go back. As the date got closer, it became evident that this second visit was going to happen. This visit went much better. They only focused on my bad eye, so only that one needed to be dilated. I also didn’t need to do the dye test. A quick eye exam (which I felt like I did better than the last time) & then over to do the scan to see how much fluid was under the retina.


They loaded the pictures in the computer and then could even display the two scans (from my first visit and today's visit) at the same time with the changes highlighted in color. I could see plenty of green which displayed any areas that had a decrease in fluid. Yea! In my novice opinion, it looked to be about a 30 percent decrease.

(Editor's note: I tried to snap some photos via cell phone when no one was really looking - there are some people who still don't get this blog thing...and I hate having to explain it. I really would have loved to have been able to openly snap photos of what was going on, especially the multi colored retinal scans that look much like a weather map during tornado watches! I didn't dare as I didn't feel like explaining myself should no one have a clue what I was talking about!)

The dr discussed laser treatment. I am a candidate and it could have been done to speed the healing process. Although, it is still recommended at this time to try let it heal on its own, as long as I am getting along ok with my everyday activities. I have been doing okay, and with today's report of progress I am comfortable waiting another 5 weeks to see if it heals up on its own!


I was hoping to save the post until I was 100% healthy, but it’s clear that it can & most likely will, take several more weeks. And since there hasn’t been much visible progress, I don’t think there will be any more updates until I can see again.

I don’t know if it will be spontaneous or gradual, and the doc wasn’t able to tell me much more either. Everybody is different and every case is different, blah blah blah.




So there you have it, more than you ever wanted to know about Central Serous Retinopathy, for those of you who may be looking for info like we were!