As long as there's discussion of eye doctors/glasses, I'd like to share my recent experience. On January 11, I met my new ophthalmologist; my longtime former eye doctor and his partner both retired in October. When I last saw Dr. M in June, he did not mention retirement, but I figured it would be coming soon. I started seeing him when he was first in private practice more than 40 years ago. My new ophthalmologist is a young woman who has been at M-D Center For Eye Care since she finished residency/fellowship at Henry Ford Hospital. I've only met her once, but I think I'm really going to like her. After some tests and pressure checks by a tech and Dr. G, it seems that my eye pressure is creeping up again despite use of bedtime eye drops. Dr. G doesn't consider the pressure dangerous at this point, but she prescribed a second drop to help lower it to normal range. The new eye drops were to be used twice daily in addition to the bedtime drops.
Our Rite Aid didn't have the drops in stock that day and had to get it from another store, so I didn't start using them until Tuesday. Late Thursday afternoon (72 hours after starting the eye drops) following my second dose of eye drops, I was doing food prep in the kitchen and started to feel dizzy, nauseous, weak, and my heart was pounding in my chest. I went and sat down and took my blood pressure: My BP and heartrate were both much too high, and I was frightened by the sensation of my heart beating wildly in my chest. After resting for half an hour, I felt better and my BP and heartrate were back to normal. Similar episodes occurred over the weekend, and I came close to asking DH to take me to the ER. My sister was here that weekend so we could watch figure skating together, and I did not want her to know that I wasn't feeling well. The heart palpitations came in waves and were very scary and uncomfortable during the night. Most of the time, I felt fine and began to attribute my symptoms as adverse side effects to the new eye drops. The extreme side effects that I experienced were listed as signs of overdose which was definitely not the case with me. I've used various eye drops for years and know exactly how to administer them.
Perhaps it was a little presumptuous on my part, but I decided to use the new drops only once daily along with the bedtime drops. After 72 hours, I no longer had the periodic rapid heartbeat, and my BP and heartrate were back to normal. I will see Dr. G for a recheck on Monday and will tell her about my experience with the new eye drops. If my pressure is coming down with a single drop in each eye daily, then it's possible that two drops a day were too many. I'm not having any of the more common side effects that people complain about, so if one dose daily works, I'd be fine with this medication. I will see my PCP on February 9 and tell her about the scary episodes. When I had my annual physical in November, all tests and labs were fine. The only thing that was different in the interim was the new eye drops.
