Went to retinal specialist today, had borderline IOP

[cambie]

Hi, I went to my retinal specialist today to followup a unilateral temporal black spot in my vision. It started about 5 weeks ago and was very obvious back then. It was associated with sparklers especially with motion. Both at my prior retinal vision 5 weeks ago and today , I was told there were no tears and my retina is healthy. However, he did also say that he saw no evidence of posterior vitreous detachment (which is what I thought I had).

Currently, the black spot is hardly noticeable in daylight with both eyes open and only minimally noticeable with just the affected eye open. In broad daylight, the black spot is quite noticeable with the affected eye open and only minimally noticeable with both eyes open.

In any event, it *seems* like things might be gettnig better. The doc didn't know what could be causing the black spot. He noticed my IOP of the affected eye was 21 and the other eye was 14. Last time, when the symptoms were worse, the affected eye was 19. But he has these measurements could be off if I have a thin cornea. Since I have high myopia (-9) it is possibly I could have glaucoma. He asked me to see a glacuoma specialist for visual field testing and corneal thickness measurment.

Does this seem like a suitable etiology for the symptoms? Does glaucoma explain the sparklers or how the symptoms are actually improving? I still think I have PVD, can that go undiagnosed on dilated eye exam?

[John C Hagan III, MD, FACS]

No elevated intraocualr pressure and a thin cornea would not cause spots like you describe.

Advanced glaucoma can cause permanent black spots (scotoma) of lost vision in the central vision.

See the glaucoma Eye MD

JC MD