I’m working on a new idea today caused by the fact that lately I have noticed my eyesight getting worse and worse. My idea isn’t something radical or earth shattering, it’s really simple, I am going to wear my glasses. I know, I should have been using them anyway, but when you have two pairs one for reading and one for seeing the end of your arm, slight exaggeration there but it is a case of the other side of the room. I have such a mix of problems with my eyes that glasses have just all to often been a case of wearing with little improvement, so they have spent most of their lives lying around anywhere other than on my face. My eyes are totally unbalanced as I am short sighted, worse in my right eye than left, but I also have optical neuritis in my left and macular degeneration in my right. The world has been an interesting blur for a long time, I always used to say that it was a good job that I never learned to drive as MS isn’t a notifiable condition. Between my bad eyesight and constant leg spams, even if I did see a pedestrian crossing the road, my spasms might mean I’d hit the accelerator instead of the brake. I have for the last few years been wearing my distance glasses at night to watch TV simply because I was fed up seeing a blur, but even when wearing them I have never been able to really read the information panels, despite every effort of the opticians. I am actually really surprised at how little you really need to see to be able to work out what something says and I do quite often manage that quite well from the settee, but I have never tried using my distance glasses from here at my PC and I haven’t been using my reading glasses whilst sat here either. All last week I was overly aware of how difficult my PC screen was to actually see, especially when I am typing, I didn’t want to enlarge things as when you do they are so huge that letters fill the screen like huge spiders. Yesterday I had had enough and I found myself reaching for my reading glasses and to my shock for the first time ever, they helped, I actually could see the screen with a hugely increased clarity and the keyboard, before I had to keep changing my physical distance between them to see them clearly, to say I was shocked is putting it mildly, something really had changed in my vision.

All through December I have also been exhausting myself daily due to extra exertions that I couldn’t avoid as I haven’t had my normal collections of TV programs. Usually during the day I watch, well more listen to, programs that I have recorded and I normally don’t watch any series until I can watch it all as that way from here I can select the next one without having to be able to read anything on screen. Change of season always means change of series and every hour I have been getting up walking over to the TV so that I can see the information panels, as it was the only way I could select the next program, something had to change and quickly. This morning by accident after sorting out some programs to record, I walked over here with my distance glasses on and I discovered that no I couldn’t see the panels, but I could make out enough to make an educated guess. So simple that I can hear people thinking how stupid is she not to have done this before, well I did, but it didn’t work before, the last time I tired, I had no benefit from my reading glasses, in fact they caused me to feel sick as I just couldn’t get the right distance and the rest of the world became so fuzzed and odd that if I moved my head around at all, motion sickness appeared and that was just a couple of months ago. Every time I have brought my distance glasses up here it was causing me an another issue, I would forget to take them back to the settee, meaning another walk across the room. When your energy reserves are so limited, even the tiniest change can totally destroy you, but it has got to the point that that one possible extra walk compared to the multiple ones to change channel and the frustration of having to constantly change pairs, is now worth the risk and before anyone says bifocals, I tried them years ago and they also caused motion sickness. I don’t know what, but something changed last month as I now know without a doubt that I wasn’t imagining the change in my eyesight. I thought it was all too sudden and that if anything it probably had to do with the fact I was always tired, but the difference in my reading glasses alone proves it, I am guessing they used to be too strong but now they’re just right.

I know that in time I probably will loose almost all sight in my right eye, which is rather annoying when it happens to be the stronger of the two when it comes to being short sighted. The macular degeneration has nothing to do with my PRMS, I somehow managed to develop a condition normally found in the elderly rather prematurely, but why that should have surprised me, I don’t know, the only connection it does have is it was found by the hospital optician I was sent to see when I was complaining of problems with my eyes, which my optician was unable to help with. As is so often with my health they weren’t just able to confirm the optical neuritis but they succeeded in finding something else as well. I have often wished that they would just give me a full body MRI and every other test there is and get it over and done with as all my body seems to have done in the last few years is slowly fall apart. Adam and I were sitting last night talking and I was reminded of two conversations that I had pre-diagnosis with two different doctors, the first was with the doctor who diagnosed my Fibro, as nice as she was, she kind of got thing wrong and I now wish that I had had a tape recorder with me as she started after I questioned some of the other symptoms I had which didn’t fit with Fibro,” There is no point us doing any other tests as you have Fibromyalgia and nothing more”, within 12 months I was diagnosed with PRMS which they believed had started when I was around 21. The second was with the ENT consultant who ordered my MRI scan as he didn’t think I had Meniere’s, which neither did I, but I had been sent there and there I was, when he was talking to me about the results, he said that either I “had survived more strokes than anyone or I had MS”, both show how things can be there that no one knows about and some wouldn’t even suspect, even those who should know better.

Please read my blog from 2 years ago today – 06/01/13 – Pick a limb any limb 

I am happy to report that the pain in my leg eased as the day went on, it is now at about normal again, painful but not making things unbearable. It’s strange I am sure to anyone who isn’t themselves living with chronic pain to think that I describe what…..