I've often found myself ignoring minor medical issues and thinking that eventually they will somehow resolve on their own and today I've learned the hard way that ignoring issues only makes things worse in the long-term.
My close relative has always had issues with his vision and we tried to get it checked out but unfortunately didn't get a very good optho and the issue was missed and subsequently we continued to ignore it. This past week the issue became serious fairly quickly with a bad eye infection, scratched cornea, and very high IOP. I felt very responsible since ultimately we should have pushed for more investigations with a different doctor and these issues could have been at least partially prevented. The consequence is that he could now have permanent vision loss in his eye whereas before it could have been temporary.
Some people would think that having some medical knowledge I would at least attempt to be healthier myself and keep my own problems under control yet it is often the opposite. A month ago, I specifically went to do a general annual blood test to see if there are any issues that I need to manage. Well....I learned that I have low iron and B12 levels....now to my defense they were low and not critically low and so I decided to put them at the back of my mind and forget about it, I mean I'm not symptomatic right? Well...if I wasn't then...I am now.
Today during my relative's eye appointment I fainted and apparently turned green and started having muscle twitches....now for some it is not a big deal but this has never happened to me even when I was watching a fairly bloody surgery during my placement so it wasn't the procedure that bothered me. Now I could attribute it to many factors: not enough sleep, not enough fluids, standing for a long time, being in a small non-ventilated office... but most likely the main thing that contributed to it was my anemia which I continually ignore.
This will probably sound very illogical, but my attempt to 'treat' this anemia before, was by dieting to lose weight so that I would go back to having irregular cycles and thereby reduce blood loss and therefore improve the anemia...ridiculous right? The plan of course failed, I was not losing weight since I am already underweight anyway, and my cycles stayed regular, the only result was that my iron levels got so low that I ended up fainting...
I have learned my lesson about letting things go too far, I have realized that since I am a female, I should have regular cycles, and trying to make them irregular doesn't make sense. I have started taking vitamin B12 to improve the absorption of iron from my diet, and have increased the amount I eat. I am going to try to get more sleep although am not sure how successful that will be, but I should try, and I am trying to drink more fluids. I will then force myself to go back to the doc to recheck my levels to see if there is any improvement in a few months. We are controlling my relative's eye pressure with meds and are going back to the optho regularly to make sure it comes down and doesn't start affecting the other eye and cause permanent blindness.
I guess the lesson is don't let medical issues deteriorate to the point where it becomes too late to manage it, everyone needs to take advocate for themselves, and if they think they're not being treated appropriately get another doc or seek a second opinion, and if you're going to treat the problem yourself at least bounce the idea off an actual professional.
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