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How to slow down ERM progress?
Eye Conditions | Last Active: Jun 24 12:19am | Replies (9)Comment receiving replies
The only thing you can do is have surgery for removal. I had it. It is painless. It sounds terrible, but is not. There are some risks with it. Your retinal will never be perfectly smooth, it will retain some wrinkle that will affect your vision. You should get gradual improvement.
The risks are detached or torn retina which can be fixed on site, infection (low probability). I had something even weirder so strange it is not even in the literature as a risk factor. I had cataract surgery first, followed by ERM removal. That was 2 years ago. My vision went from 20/50 to 20/150. The IOL is wrong for my eye, I developed persistent CME and now I have steroid induced glaucoma. I went off all meds to preserve the optic nerve, but the sight in that eye is awful. This is NOT the usual experience. I also canceled cataract surgery for the other eye. DONE WITH DOCTORS.
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@margieb58 I guess your doctor is like mine, saying that there is nothing that can be done.
There is an article called "Why surgeons are peeling fewer ERMs". Being a new member, I'm not allowed to post links here.
This is the section that interests me:
[begin quote]
At first glance, Dr. Shakoor doesn’t like accepting the label of idiopathic ERM, as common as it may be. He approaches ERM patients with what he considers a healthy degree of skepticism, seeking answers to questions.
“You’ll find that a lot of these patients actually do have an underlying process,” he says. “You want to look specifically for inflammatory or vascular disease. Specifically, I want to find out if the patient has uveitis or retinal vasculitis. Does he or she have a history of endophthalmitis? I want to know if a vein occlusion is involved. How about microvascular disease? Does the patient have diabetes? Those are the issues you should explore.
“If there’s an active disease process going on, including uveitis, then it should be controlled before a decision is made on whether to do a surgical procedure such as an ERM peel,” he says.
Failing to identify another active process will increase the chance of ERM recurrence or a recurrence of inflammation that leads to other structural damage, he points out. “If you have a patient who has any inflammation, bringing that inflammation under control before surgery is very important,” he adds. “You don’t want to operate on eyes affected by an inflammatory process.”
[End quote]
Although it mainly talks about preventing a recurring ERM, I guess the same concept can be applied to stop or slow down the progression of ERM. It seems that most retinal specialists are not concerned of the underlying condition. Why not?