Yesterday my husband drove me to the Wills Eye Hospital in Huntingdon Valley, Pennsylvania to see an eye specialist about my sudden vision loss.  After much testing ~ including blood work, vegetable dye chasers and lots of eye scans ~ the doctor diagnosed me with Multiple Evanescent White Dot Syndrome (MEWDS).  Doesn’t it sound like I have fizzy water floating around my eye?

MEWDS is a rare eye disease that affects young women (so take that “at your age) between the ages of 14 and 47.  Men can get MEWDS too but women seem to suffer from it by a 5 to 1 average. MEWDS is usually preceded by a viral infection (other than the headache, I didn’t feel a thing) and then the sudden disruption of vision in one eye (although it can happen in both eyes, this is very uncommon).  If you look at the picture ~ that’s not my eye ~ you can see a bunch of white spots all over the eyeball, well, that’s similar to what my eye currently looks like.

The prognosis is good.  I should regain my sight in a few weeks to a few months.  Yay, for recovered eye sight; boo, for waiting.  There isn’t any treatment (although the doctor has prescribed a heavy duty dose of steroids, which I will begin taking today). The only other question is what will my vision be like once it’s restored ~ will it go back to normal, will it be worse, etc?

Honestly, I feel a lot better now that I have a name to my condition.  Not knowing was much more frightening than knowing.  Really, waking up and realizing that you cannot see is one of the scariest things that could possibly happen.  Waiting  3 days to find out what’s going on?  One of the dumbest.  Take it from me, if you go to bed with the ability to see and you wake up and you cannot see, GO TO THE ER!