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Thread: Medical Diagnosis Found By Routine Eye Exam

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    Redhot Jumper Medical Diagnosis Found By Routine Eye Exam

    Hello. I work for a small practice in Yakima Washington. I am doing a presentation to my fellow employees and Doctors (yikes) with the topic of Medical Diagnosis Found By Routine Eye Exam. Does anyone have any "rare" or strange DX found by an exam? I have been doing research and found a few things diagnosed thru eye exams :Shaken Baby Syndrome, high blood pressure, diabetes, MS, Brain tumors, and Wegener's Granulomatosis. If anyone has anything to add I would greatly appreciate it. I need all the help I can get with this presentation. Julie

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    Worms, catarct, hypertension, detatched retina, symblepharon, conjunctivitus, superior limbic keratitus, keratitus, dissica, glaucoma, iritus, ocular pimphagus, papillary conjuntivitus, vernal catar, myopia, astigmatism, hyperopia, allergic conjuctivitus, crabs, keratoconnus, keratoglobus, tuberculosis, scarlet fever, rubella and syphliis.

    That's all that come to mind at the minite.

    Remember even if it's something that effects the eye only, it's also a medical condtion.

    Chip

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    Had a benign pituitary tumor and a hemorrhagic ateriovenous malformation last year within a month of each other.
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    ATO Member HarryChiling's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by jalvers View Post
    Hello. I work for a small practice in Yakima Washington. I am doing a presentation to my fellow employees and Doctors (yikes) with the topic of Medical Diagnosis Found By Routine Eye Exam. Does anyone have any "rare" or strange DX found by an exam? I have been doing research and found a few things diagnosed thru eye exams :Shaken Baby Syndrome, high blood pressure, diabetes, MS, Brain tumors, and Wegener's Granulomatosis. If anyone has anything to add I would greatly appreciate it. I need all the help I can get with this presentation. Julie
    Julie I am back in the office on Wednesday if you e-mail me I can send you case histories and photos's of course I can't give you names or other identifiable information, but it should help.
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    strange one last week

    Last week had one that turned out to be cat scratch fever.










    singing the song yet?:D

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    OptiBoard Professional OptiBoard Bronze Supporter bblaker's Avatar
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    HOLE IN HEART 32 YO WF

    With confrontations tech noticed restricted fields...I double checked in room then did 24-2 ...had mid line respecting fields...referred to neuro, pt had embolism,but why...further eval revealed hole in heart throwing clots...she was a ticking time bomb...

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    Quote Originally Posted by jalvers View Post
    Hello. I work for a small practice in Yakima Washington. I am doing a presentation to my fellow employees and Doctors (yikes) with the topic of Medical Diagnosis Found By Routine Eye Exam...."
    Are you approaching this topic from the standpoint of business practice or professional practice? I'm a bit confused why you posted this thread? Does "other" professional mean that you are in...."?

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    Quote Originally Posted by jalvers View Post
    Hello. I work for a small practice in Yakima Washington. I am doing a presentation to my fellow employees and Doctors (yikes) with the topic of Medical Diagnosis Found By Routine Eye Exam. Does anyone have any "rare" or strange DX found by an exam? I have been doing research and found a few things diagnosed thru eye exams :Shaken Baby Syndrome, high blood pressure, diabetes, MS, Brain tumors, and Wegener's Granulomatosis. If anyone has anything to add I would greatly appreciate it. I need all the help I can get with this presentation. Julie
    Here's a good story of an optician saving a patient. Older lady came in for an eyeglass adjustment, a longstanding patient that the optician knew. The optician felt that something wasn't quite right about her, but couldn't put her finger on what was wrong, she asked me to talk to the lady. I didn't know her, had never seen her before (she was a patient of the other doc there), but did what the optican asked, took her back. I had her read the chart (20/20 OD, OS at D and N), checked pupils, did a confrontation field. Turned out she had a left field cut and left neglect... she'd had a stroke. The only reason it was picked up was because of an optician that was paying attention. After a lot of convincing, we got her daughter to take her to the ER, because it was so fast after the onset of the stroke, she made a 100% recovery within a couple of days (and brought us lots of homemade baked goods to say thank you!).

    Other odd ones... I've asked 2 patients to go home and take pregancy tests and was right both times (due to refractive changes atypical for their age).

    How about having to tell a patient their drug dealer is cheating them? Look up Talc Retinopathy... I saw that in a patient once in Philadelphia when I was a student.

    I had another patient with recurrent herpetic corneal infections, called her family doc and asked that she be checked for HIV. The test was positive :(

    If you name a systemic disease, it affects the eyes somehow... Lyme disease, hypertension, high cholesterol, diabetes, myasthenia gravis, Lou Gehrig's, MS, brain tumors, carotid artery disease, arthritits, any autoimmune condition, etc. The eye is part of every system of the body.. vascular, immune, muscular, neurological, etc, so everything affects it somehow.

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    Master OptiBoarder OptiBoard Gold Supporter DragonLensmanWV's Avatar
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    The first OD I worked for had a 12 year old girl patient come in for routine exam. He was in there a few minutes with her, then ran out of the exam room and made a few phone calls. Next thing we know, he's leading her and her mother out of the office. He turns to us, and says "She's got a brain tumor!"
    She did, she died a couple of months later. Rotten luck.
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    I'm doing my Doctoral thesis on the effects of HIV/Aids and HIV/Aids therapy on vision. Not only can the desease cause problems but the therapy to help it can be worse.

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    Wave why i am askin this....

    I am a CPO at Selah Vision Clinic I assist the Dr’s . I am taking the COPA test in June. I think I put “other” when I had my job in Boise Idaho . I was a Contact lens tech and I couldn’t find a category for that. I am doing this for a presentation at our staff meeting. I just want it to be informative and enlightening. A lot of our staff are new to eye care and have no idea that diseases can be discovered with eye exams. They think it is just for glasses. Thanks for any info you can give me Julie

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    Quote Originally Posted by jalvers View Post
    I am a CPO at Selah Vision Clinic I assist the Dr’s . I am taking the COPA test in June. I think I put “other” when I had my job in Boise Idaho . I was a Contact lens tech and I couldn’t find a category for that. I am doing this for a presentation at our staff meeting. I just want it to be informative and enlightening. A lot of our staff are new to eye care and have no idea that diseases can be discovered with eye exams. They think it is just for glasses. Thanks for any info you can give me Julie
    many of the diseases you mentioned cannot be "diagnosed" with an eye exam, as much as one would like to think so. Diabetes is a good example. You can certainly suspect diabetes following an eye exam, but a diagnosis can only be made with blood sugar testing. This is also true with most other entities which are discovered by routine ocular examination. A brain tumour may encroach on certain nerves or blood supply, which may or may not be visible with an eye exam, but even when a brain tumour is strongly suspected, even to near certainty, further testing is usually required to confirm. In such an instance one could claim the tumour had been discovered, or "diagnosed" with an eye exam, but this is rarely the case. I recall sending an unstable refraction to a G.P. with diabetes being strongly suspected. A diagnosis was made by the physician who confirmed diabetes, but the diagnosis was his, not mine.

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    Dem medical doctors might need all that but today's medical optometrists are so well schooled in diagnosis through eye exams. Nothing more than a routine eye exam is needed.

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    Quote Originally Posted by chip anderson View Post
    Dem medical doctors might need all that but today's medical optometrists are so well schooled in diagnosis through eye exams. Nothing more than a routine eye exam is needed.
    Just like LDO's who can read a book and diagnose.

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    ATO Member HarryChiling's Avatar
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    Here we go again...................
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    Quote Originally Posted by jalvers View Post
    I am a CPO at Selah Vision Clinic I assist the Dr’s . I am taking the COPA test in June. I think I put “other” when I had my job in Boise Idaho . I was a Contact lens tech and I couldn’t find a category for that. I am doing this for a presentation at our staff meeting. I just want it to be informative and enlightening. A lot of our staff are new to eye care and have no idea that diseases can be discovered with eye exams. They think it is just for glasses. Thanks for any info you can give me Julie
    Good on you for going for your CPOA! Will you be taking it at Optometry's Meeting? I took the CPOA exam in 2004...did the CPOT written last September and doing the practical in June.

    Looks like you've got some good posts here. Good luck on your presentation!

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    ATO Member HarryChiling's Avatar
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    We have not recieved a follow up letter yet from the OMD but turns out the patient had a tumor on the spine and the pressure was causeing the elevation you see in the photos.
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