Vision-Eye Chart A Year Ago

Eye Chart

A Year Ago

11" x 14"

watercolors

Yesterday, I wrote about seeing the eye chart in a different doctor's office while my aunt was getting her eyes checked. I have posted this painting before in my Vision series. I wanted to show it again as a comparison to the eye chart as I saw it last January and the chart that I saw this week.

Recently, I joined a list or forum online for MD (Macular Degeneration) support. There are people on there of all ages and who have, or someone in their life has, MD or some similar vision problem. There are some very knowledgeable, highly qualified, and experienced people on the list. I have put a link to this group and others under Eye Sites on my sidebar.

Richard Trevino is one of the helpful people on the list. I wrote a little about the online vision test for MD that he has developed in a previous post.

Information about the test, and the test itself, can be found at http://myvisiontest.com/about.php . You can find out more about Richard Trevino on his website which I have listed under Interesting Sites in my sidebar.

I'm not a professional, by any means, and didn't even need glasses except for close, small things like threading a needle or reading computer printouts, until recent years. So, I do not feel very experienced in vision problems. I am trying to learn all I can and prepare myself as best as I can for this journey. And I am trying to share what I learn and experience in order to help others who find themselves, or someone in their lives, in a similar situation.

I took the test at MyVisionTest.com and found my results. Each time I check my vision on the test, now, it will tell me if my vision has changed by comparing the results to my previous visits.

I was curious about the test and the man who created it. So, I wrote to him and asked for information. I also told him that I wanted to share with my readers. He was kind enough to send me some very interesting information that I think is important to know. He certainly seems well-qualified to develop and offer this test and information to benefit the public.

*************************************

Richard Trevino

MyVisionTest

Richard Trevino's ultimate goal is to improve the ability of people with macular degeneration to test their vision at home between visits to the eye doctor. This is important because, if bleeding occurs, doctors want to get treatment started as soon as possible to prevent permanent vision loss. There has been great progress over the past several years in the treatment of wet macular degeneration (Avastin, Macugen, Lucentis, etc.), but the ability to reach people that need this treatment has lagged. There is good research that is pointing in the direction of an online vision test. The exact form that the ideal vision test will take is unclear.

Trevino's project is the first of its kind. It is just a prototype. It is a proof of concept that vision testing over the internet for patients with macular degeneration is possible, and that people will use it and can benefit from it. It is still very much a work in progress. He is continually adjusting it in reponse to feedback from users. He also plans to develop other vision tests using different testing strategies in an attempt to find one that works best. So this project is still very much in its infancy.

Trevino has given presentations and he is writing papers to try to raise awareness among optometrists of the need for imporoved home vision testing for patients with macular degeneration. You can find a powerpoint presentation that he gave to a group of optomoetrists on this topic at slideshare.net

http://www.slideshare.net/rhodopsin/macular-function-surveillance-revisited/

He has also written a paper on this topic that will be published in the "Journal of the American Optometric Association" in July, 2008. A second paper is currently being written, which he hopes to have published later in the year.

Trevino has approached several researchers about doing a study using MVT (My Vision Test), but has been unable to get anyone interested to date.

Trevino is a practicing optometrist, and works at a Veterans Administration medical center in Evansville, Indiana. He has an interest in research and teaching, and has published numerous papers in the optometric literature over his 20 + year career.

He developed an interest in computers in the early 1990s and has become quite a computer geek. He taught himself computer programming, and has developed numberous web sites and computer programs over the years. He never charges for his services, as he does it just for the fun and personal satisfaction that he derives from helping others.

He has no intention of ever charging people to use MyVisionTest.

Trevino got the idea for developing an online vision test for macular degeneration after reading several research papers by scientists that were trying to develop a better vision test for macular degeneration.. Although these papers were published years ago, and the results of the research was very promising, he was unable to find anything available on the internet for people to use. So, he decided to do it himself.

Currently, patients are advised by their doctors to use the Amsler Grid daily to check for changes in their vision. This is given in the form of a chart printed on heavy paper or even in a brochure. There are also examples of the Amsler Grid online. If changes are detected, patients are instructed to contact their Retina Specialist immediately. Time is very important in preventing futher damage due to a bleed or fluid leaking.

You can find a link to Richard Trevino in my sidebar under Interesting Sites, and to MyVision Test under Eye Sites.

My thanks to Rick for providing the information about himself, and for his work with those who have, or will have, vision loss.

*******************************************

Please share this with anyone who you think might be interested. Thanks for reading. I do welcome your comments and your support.

**********************************************

Don't forget to sign my Guest Book at the very bottom of this page. And join my group if you haven't already done so.

Vision-The Eye Chart

The Eye Chart

January 8, 2008

5.25" x 8.25"

watercolors

Yesterday, I sat in my aunt's eye doctors' examining room with her while she had her annual eye exam. My aunt is in a wheel chair, so she needed to have someone there with her. She has one bad eye, that she truly can't see out of, and was using only reading glasses until last year. We determined that she can see much better with glasses, so they gave her some to wear all the time.

They went through putting drops in her eyes,and covering each eye, shining a light in her eyes. All the things they do in an eye exam. They had to keep directing her where to look. But, she actually read the letters as they flashed on a mirror beside where I was sitting.

I looked, too, to see what she was looking at and even checked the wall behind her, where the letters were displayed on a wall.

I was getting a little distressed. I didn't even think to close each eye and look, but I did try to see the test she was taking. I couldnt' make out any letters, while my aunt was able to read some of the letters.

The above painting shows several of the rows of letters that was shown to her, as I saw them.

For the large letters, I saw a simple diamond ring with a cold, blue stone in it. On the opposite end, there was a gift wrapped package, with a red ribbon and a bow on top. In the center, there was an abstract purple shape. In another row of letters of a different size, there seemed to be stylized shapes that resembled flowing letters, but with holes in them, like lace. One seemed to have something like a broken pencil or popsicle stick on one side of it. The smaller lines of letters were just a bunch of scratchy marks on gray.

I do realize that this is leaning a bit, and that my lines are not straight. But remember that I was sitting to one side, out of the way, looking into a mirror in a darkened room. Things were not straight or even as I looked into that mirror.

This reminded me of the eye exam I had a year ago, to renew my drivers license. Two eye doctors told me that my eyes were good enough to pass that drivers test. But, when I got there, all I could see was a black background with some green squiggles instead of letters. ( I have a painting about that called "Vision-Ready To Go" in my archives on the sidebar.) When I got my Lucentis injection, just before that exam at the DPS, and as soon as I was pronounced ready to go, I could see the eye chart in the room. I could make out letters, although some were blurry and overlapped, but I could still make them out. So why couldn't I see any letters on the eye test at the DPS office?

I wondered, yesterday, if this was my imagination, if something was not connecting with my brain, or is it the Macular Degeneration and cataracts. Maybe he was giving her a different kind of test, like they might give to children, where there are objects instead of letters. But, no, that couldn't be. She was telling the doctor what letters were there, and he was reacting to that.

So, I knew there were letters that I should be seeing.

"One of these days, I may have to get these cataracts taken care of, " I commented to the tech lady or whatever her job is called now. (I would have said nurse, but there are so many different people working in doctors' offices these days, that I don't know who is what unless I ask them.)

I expected her to say something like, "Oh, do you have a problem? We do that here." Instead, she just said a disinterested "Oh".

I didn't mention the AMD or ask any questions. After all, this was not the doctor I had been to. But, I really don't have a doctor, and just saw a doctor that I had gone to many years before when I thought I needed glasses last year. And he immediately sent me to a Retina Specialist, who won't see me anymore due to his demand for payment of thousands of dollars, before each visit, or much better insurance than I have. So, I'm kind of shopping around to see who might be interested in me and my health, at an affordable price. I guess that person no longer exists.

I didn't mention the fact that their letters looked like objects to me, but now I am wondering why I saw things the way that I did.

"Okay, we'll see you next year!" the tech lady said as she wheeled my aunt to the door.

As I stood up, I could see some of the letters still reflected on the wall. Those were thick, black letters, and not a sign of an object, or anything that looked like an object among them. And, there certainly was no color.

Maybe, in my mind, I just made up a more interesting eye chart. I'll bet I could make a story out of the eye chart as I saw it yesterday.

Look back in my Archives for more of my art work and experiences with Macular Degeneration. All of those posts are prefaced with the word "Vision".

Also, read my post from yesterday where I began telling about a website that has an online test for Macular Degeneration. I have a link to MyVisionTest in my sidebar under Eye Sites.

Virginia Vaughan has announced that her book of some of her paintings about "The Last Year On The Farm" is out and ready to be ordered. See her blog or website for more information. I have a link to her site under Artists and Authors in my sidebar.

I was struck by the work of artist Russell Baker as I looked at various artists' blogs today. He does lovely work and has some of the most compelling paintings of dogs that you will see. In some of his work, he shows dogs that have encountered terrible circumstances. Some of the stories will just tear at your heart, especially if you love animals and life. I've put a link to Russ, as well, for you to take a look at.

I hope that you enjoy my blog, and that you will pass it on to others who might be interested. Please let me know if you find something of interest to you. And be sure to stop by and sign my Guest Book at the very bottom of my page. Scroll all the way down to the very end of my blog.

Vision- Symptoms

Symptoms

(composite)

11" x 14"

watercolors

It doesn't hurt. There isn't pain. But, vision might be a little blurred. Colors may be hard to distinguish, such as in trying to pick out something in navy blue or black. But that is just part of growing older, just like having to get reading glasses because, as you get older, your arms tend to not be long enough to read, isn't it?

But, then, one day, suddenly, you may look across a room and notice that the venetian blinds are not completely straight. One end has a bump in it. The lines are wavey at one end. You blink, look away, go into another room and return, and the blinds look normal again. You wonder why that happened. Maybe it's time for new glasses? The old reading glasses from the drugstore may not be enough.

Later, that night, at a school function, you are looking down a long hall while talking to a teacher. Odd. The handrail at the end of the hall has a lump in it at one end. It's wavey, not straight. You blink, look away, walk around, then look again. The handrail is as it should be.

You forget about it, although it was a little unsettling. With a lifetime of 20/20 vision, these little quirks of sight are a bit annoying and you hope they will not happen again.

While stopped at a traffic light in town, with someone else driving, you look down the street in front of you, noticing the perspective of the road, the lack of cars driving across the intersection, the buildings where there once was a pasture. But, suddenly, you notice that the telephone poles are, like the venetian blinds and handrail, wavey. Only this time, these are vertical lines. Again, you blink, you turn away, and just hope to get across the intersection quickly so that these wavey lines will stop. It's beginning to make you a little nauseated or sea sick.

"You've got to be the navigator and tell me where to turn," the driver said to me. I watched for the street sign that told me where to turn to go to my house.

"I think that's it, " but I couldn't be sure. The letters just appeared to be marks on the sign. The pole, like the telephone poles, was wavey and making me feel nauseated. I covered my face.

It was the right street and we did make it home. But no thanks to me. I couldn't read the sign and didn't want to look anymore and risk having that seasick feeling again.

Riding with the family at night, you notice that the light pole in a shopping center parking light has 22 lights on it, instead of one! It was so annoying that you made it a point to count how many seperate lights you were seeing on the pole. Usually, it doesn't matter whether the light has one or 4 lights on it, just so it provides the needed light in that spot.

My vision was alright after each little incident. But, more frequently, the same sort of things would happen again.

And then came the time to renew my drivers license. I knew I must need glasses, so I went to my eye doctor for an exam. I've gone into those experiences on previous posts. You can go into my archives to read those posts. Each title is prefaced with the word Vision.

When I asked about the wavey lines, the doctor brought out an Amsler Grid and had me look at that. The right eye was fine, but, with the left eye, the grid had lots of wavey lines, lines that didn't connect, and a purple spot in the center. The doctor got me in to see a Retina Specialist by the next Monday. He wanted me to go that afternoon, but the Retina Specialist was not in town.

I was stunned, shocked, terrified, and had never heard of such a thing.

The wavey or bent lines is a symptom of Macular Degeneration. If you experience that sort of thing, you are supposed to get to your eye doctor or Retina Specialist immediately. I've also heard that trouble in distinguishing colors can also be a symptom of Macular Degeneration.

In my case, there was fluid accumulated in the macula. This makes the macula bend or swell and distorts vision. My doctor wanted me to see a specialist before blood could start leaking from weak blood vessels that would form behind the macula. These weak vessels would leak fluid first, then blood. Once the blood leaked and vision was damaged, it would be gone and could not be recovered.

I was diagnosed with the wet form of AMD. This is said to be one that develops suddenly and does its damage rather fast. The dry form develps slower. But there are treatments for wet AMD, and very little for the dry form. New treatments and tests are being developled.

You can't see anything happening from the exterior of your eye. Your eye looks like it always has. People can't look at you and see that there is something wrong with your vision. And, there isn't pain that makes AMD unbearable. So, looking for early symptoms is important in minimizing the damage that AMD can do.

The painting above is a composite painting I did of the first symptoms I experienced at the beginning of my vision problem. The explanation I wrote tells about what happened in each of the smaller pictures. It begins with the upper left hand corner, moves down to the lower left corner, then over to the right side and back up to the top right-counter clockwise.

I used Winsor Newton watercolors on 140 # Arches watercolor paper to do this painting.

Look under my Eye Sites section on my sidebar to see more links to information on vision and Macular Degeneration.

One new link that I added was to a site called "My Vision Test", which was created by Richard Trevino. I discovered that site through MD Forum, a list that has a focus on sharing about MD and related eye problems.

From their site, in the About section:

MY VISION TEST

"MyVisionTest is an entoptic perimetry computer program. It is intended to supplement the Amsler Grid for patients with macular disease that need to monitor their vision for progression. It is offered free of charge to the public. The vision test and website were developed by Richard Trevino, an optometrist located in Indiana, USA. Although numberous published studies have demonstrated the soundness of entoptic perimetry for the purpose of detecting vision defects caused by macular disease, there are currently no published studies that have employed our computer program. However, we are in discussions with researchers about undertaking such a study. Hopefully, published studies employing MyVisionTest will be forthcoming. "

I'll write more about Rick and the test in another post as this one is getting long, I'm sure. Rick was kind enough to give me some information that is most helpful in knowing more about the test and also about the person who created the test. He certainly seems qualified and interested in doing what he can to help people with Macular Degeneration.

I also added a link to Richard Trevino's website under Interesting Sites.

Thank you for reading and sharing. Don't forget to go to the bottom of the page and sign my Guest Book. Also, join my group, Art By Cecelia, if you haven't already.

Let me know if you see something of interest to you.