Does anyone know any eye foundation or organization that caters those who are financially incapable

Thank you Gemma39685...sadly, there isn't much support here in our country as much they do in other countries. There are charity hospital here in my country which caters to the poor but sadly they don't have the much needed machine for the eye exam and service is not that good. Eye center are usually owned by private hospitals which is really expensive and will cost me more the thousands.... The only way is too seek help from organization outside my country. I did some research on different eye care and preventive blindness foundation/organization and send email to them one by one. Hopefully get some answer soon. Any way how was your condition? I pray your vision is well... Again thank you for your message...

Hey, 

Really sorry to hear this. Im so sorry and i feel so sad reading this. Its also made me think just how lucky i am really!!!! Wish i could help you. 

Its crazy think you cant get help in your own coutry without paying silly amounts of money. Im in similiar situation to you in the fact ive had to stop working and have no savings but i am lucky to have the NHS which is free just not that fast. But no gosh at least i have it as without i would be so stressed. I can imagine this is how you feel.

You said you had some tests but no answer from them, what have they done so far and what test are you wanting?

Do you have blurred vision the whole time? 

I honestly wish i could you. All i can say but truely mean is that i hope help finds you as fast as possible. Its so scary and your so young still. Just dont give up, keeping searching and sending those emails. Something will come up. Do u have the funds though the travel to another country if you do find help?

Stay strong. 

My condition is fairly complicated to be honest. I suffer from conversion disorder which is a condition also named as a functional neurological symptom disorder. Its where the body shows psychological stress in pysical ways. This is all due to my past history where i suffered abuse for years. Now im safe and away from the abuse 2 years ago and my body can finally recover i developed this condition. Its now basically where ive kept it all bottled up for so many years now its coming out of me in this very unpleasant ways. My syptoms basically are paralysis of my legs where i have no feeling at all and blindess. They will come and go which i know sounds odd. I tend to go lose the feeling in my legs plus 100 times a day so if im walking for example i will just fall to the ground. The feeling can take minutes to come back or hours. Its the same with the blindess but worse i go blind sometimes 300 times a day. I lose all sight in both eyes but recently ive totally lost the sight in my left eye and it hasnt come back for a while now. I had pain in my eyes always. So its very hard to fuction or do anything to be honest. But with the right help which im gaining now it should help improve all this and in fact go away totally. Treatment for me is alot of in depth counselling and pysio on my legs etc. 

But as i say although its taken a year to get this help at least i have it. 

I cant bare to think how frustrasted your feeling and it must be hard.

Do you have family support? Maybe is there someone you know who could lend you the money until you find work? Are you looking for work? 

Im wishing you so much luck and please let me know if i can help or at least support you through this time.

All the best, 

Gemma

 

Hi Gemma,

I'm glad to hear that you are doing good. And yes, you're very lucky that you got support from your country.

Mine, started as blurred vision 2years ago, I went to the doctor to have it checked and told me that I need to wear glasses. My vision got better only for a few months until I started having flashes of light, glare around light and on and off cloudy vision. I went back to the doctor and they told me everything fine. It's normal.

Novemeber 2015, I went back to a specialist he asked me if we have history of Glaucoma because my optic nerve is a little bigger than my the normal. But it's only a small change that I could possibly have Glaucoma. He said just to be sure I had to do optic disc and visual acuity test and seek for second opinion with another specialist. So I did, and it was ruled out by the second especially that I went to and told me that my symptoms are associated with Migraine.

December of 2015, when I started seeing ghosting image and visual hallucination at night. I remember, that I was awaken with a tunnel like vision, it is as if you're wearing sunglasses in the dark and you see the round edges in your both eyes which lasted only for a few seconds. It happened twice in both eyes. And then on and off I will experience clouding in my peripheral vision or I'll see cobweb like floater whenever I look into the lights. And Ghosting image in object or people. I went back to a specialist and ask me to do, flourescein angiogram that was December 17 and I got my result 2 months later because I have no money at that time I was suppose to get my result a week after I did the angiogram the result of my angiogram said that I have RPE (retinal pigment epithelium) defect in my left eye. RPE is The pigmented layer of retina or retinal pigment epithelium (RPE) is the pigmented cell layer just outside the neurosensory retina that nourishes retinal visual cells, and is firmly attached to the underlying choroid and overlying retinal visual cells. After that, I was referred to a neurologist and ask me to have MRI which I haven't done yet since, it's really expensive here in my country.

About a week ago, I had the worse visual disturbance. The ghosting image in my eyes didn't disappear usually it comes and goes and It's affecting me pretty back because the ghosting image I see has a rainbow coloured aura or as I describe it, it kinda like a vertical chromatic aberration in the eyes. It is also accompanied by flickering of vision which is what really bothering me. At first I thought It was electrical in my house but it's happening even in different environment. It feels like someone is switching the light on and off in your vision and lasted only for a few seconds(2-3) which is really fast. I had eye pain as well.

Both my parents are jobless and my friends can only give me support through prayers and advices but not financially. All of these things gave me excessive amount of anxiety and panic. Sometimes, I woke up in the middle of the night in great fear that something might go wrong, i was too terrified. I am currently looking for a job. I was actually planning to apply for flight attendant in our flag carrier airline bcos it's my dream but the thing is that I need to have a perfect vision. I am so devastated right now.

I really hope that I can get answer from the foundation that I reached out to. Thank you for your support Gemma. I really appreciate it. I'm sorry if this takes long. I wish you well.

Deb

Hey, 

Wow i see what your saying. Gosh thats tough. 

Im pleased to hear you do have family support though as that really important i feel.

So im guessing the next step is an urgent MRI. Could you not go to a local hospital just to have the MRI? I feels so bad for you as something as simple as an MRI you cant even get. Ive had many infact when i went through all my tests. 

Do you think this could be pycholgical to? Bit like what i explainned about mine. Do you take any meds for your stress and anixety? Could help. 

I hope you hear soon. I of course have no idea how it is in your country and how hard your system seems to be without funding. 

I hope you can find a job soon. Is it easy to find a job? even if its not your dream job. I can understand how you feel about that as i was always working from the age of 15, was working about school. This was becasue i enjoyed working and gosh by the time i was 18 and finished my training i worked 16hr days and loved it. Now due to my medical issues i cant work at all so im very lost in life, even though its been 2 years im still cant get used to it at all. 

Keep in touch with your progress. Wishing you much luck. 

Gemma

 

Local hospital here don't have machine that is used for MRI and still have to pay thousands of peso.

Yes I do have occasional anxiety attack but I'm not taking any medications for it.......

I'm looking for a job with decent pay so I could at least have funding for my check up. It's not easy to find job here cos we have high unemployment rate but Hopefully I can get a job soon. I will keep you posted.

Oh ok i see. Sorry. 

Do you think though both the anxiety and eye problems could be linked? 

I hope a job turns up soon for you. Goodluck. 

 

As I wrote this, I am experiencing another visual disturbance. I am watching news on my smart phone when I look up everything started shaking or flickering. It's hard to explain, but when I close my eyes and then open it, it feels like I had blinking vision. You know when you blink too fast its almost seem like a light switch on and off. It happen for more than a minute and then I saw few faded dark spots in my vision. I don't if it has something to do with migraine because I had headache but this is the first time that it had happened. I am so scared. I cried. I panic.

I have another option. I am trying to register to Gofundme. Hopefully this will help me. Hope to hear from you soon

Oh poor u. Dont be scared though i know its hard. 

Sorry to hear you have another syptom. Just a quick question do you always use your phone for looking up things, watching tv etc etc. As i always used to use my phone but now ive started using a laptop as its a bigger screen and ive found it takes the pressure of my eyes a bit. Just thought of it that it could help you. 

Whats gofundme? Will they be able to pay for some help? How soon can they help you do you think?

I really hope you get help and answers soon

 

Hi Gemma,

Yes, I often use my phone when looking up on things. I seldomly watched television or use my laptop but most of the  time I use my smart phone. I am trying to lessen my time using it so I could rest my  eyes a bit hopefully it will help.

anyway, gofundme is a individual fundraising where you will write your story and ask anyone to help. you will have to set your target amount 5 percent of that will go to the creator of gofundme and the rest will be for your use. you just have to make an update about your condition

anyway, thank you Gemma for your support i really appreciate it

Hey, 

OK cool I understand. Hope you get some luck with that. Is it a worldwide thing? 

I cant even begin to imagine how hard it must be. Just dont give up keep trying. Every cloud has a silver lining ;-)

Yh try give your self breaks and use larger screens. Not that i can talk since ive been on the computer all day today oops. But i was given that adivce and do normally stick to it.

No worries at all. Keep in touch. Im here anytime even just for a chat

 

I did, already. But they keep saying that I have almost no grade and no matching lenses for my eyes which really frustrates me. Yes, we do have Philhealth here in my country but if you're jobless you can't even use it since you need to pay 300pesos every month for your Philthealth card. There are blue cards and yellow cards here that you can use in public hospital that are free but since it's a public hospital they mostly caters to reading and prescription glasses only. And not, extreme eye cases. There a lot of cases of mis diagnosis in public hospital as well...Sadly we have very poor medical assistance here in our country where health should be number priority

The yellow card is for the Makati area of Manilla only and the blue card for the Philippine General Hospital? Do you not live in Makati, or Manilla at all? Can you not get to the PGH (even if there are massive queues when you get there)? It looks to me as if they do have more equipment than the standard optician.

Hi Robert, I live in a nearby province outside Manila. Actually, most of my check ups and test and done in PGH. First, I went to De Lasalle hospital in Dasmariñas because it near where I live and the referred me to PGH where in they have all equipments since they have eye center (Sentro Opthalmogico Jose Rizal) inside PGH. The first doctor in PGH who checked my eyes said that it was only because I need to wear glasses, the second doctor (PGH) said that he's suspecting Glaucoma and told me to seek second opinion with another specialist which I did, I went to Manila Doctor's vision center, and they told me that maybe it's due to Migraine. A few months after that I started another series of visual disturbance that's why I went back to PGH this time the doctor recommend me to do a flourescein angiogram.

I also applied getting blue card and but somewhat denied because they said that they only prioritize those who lived in Manila. I also went to Ospital ng Makati for check up but it's more likely that they can only do much as prescription glasses and correcting vision. Any way, are you by any chance live in the Philippines?

No, I live in the UK and have only ever left its shores once (and only went as far as Europe). I was just looking at the healthcare available in the Philippines and what the significance of the coloured health cards is.

In the UK opticians (always, as far as I know) do a pressure check for glaucoma every time they check your eyes for new specs. To us that's no big deal at all.

I'm beginning to believe though that diagnosis in eye related problems can be quite a difficult matter. I have a dimmer, colour-weakened, blurred (by weakness?), wavy image that is also diminished in size with a scotoma in my left eye. Nonetheless, if I keep the eye still I can still read text on the computer screen through the middle of the scotoma – there is no totally blind spot, the waviness only occurs when I move the eye. I think it all points to some sort of swelling of the retina. I went to the hospital saying I thought it was keratitis having somehow got my wires crossed looking at the subject on the Internet. They said they wanted to check for neovascularization. So whether it's just a swelling, whether there's been bleeding or whether there's neovascularization I don't currently know. I thought it had started when I had been out in very bright sunlight, so I had been thinking photic retinopathy, but I've now read that stress including heat can bring on serous retinopathy, and 60 is the new 40, they say, so ...

I found:

"The Makati Health Plus (MHP), better known as Yellow Card, entitles beneficiaries to free outpatient consultations and subsidized in-patient care in the fields of  ... ENT, *ophthalmology*, dermatology and orthopedics at the city-run Ospital ng Makati (Osmak) in Bgy. Pembo."

As I wrote this, I am experiencing another visual disturbance. I am watching news on my smart phone when I look up everything started shaking or flickering. It's hard to explain, but when I close my eyes and then open it, it feels like I had blinking vision. You know when you blink too fast its almost seem like a light switch on and off. It happen for more than a minute and then I saw few faded dark spots in my vision. I don't if it has something to do with migraine because I had headache but this is the first time that it had happened. I am so scared. I cried. I panic.

I have another option. I am trying to register to Gofundme. Hopefully this will help me. Hope to hear from you soon