A 33-year-old English woman who ordered an eye exam because she thought she needed glasses instead was discovered to have a life-threatening condition thanks to her optician.
“It hadn’t occurred to me that it could be something more serious. […] Experience has really shown me how important regular check-ups are. If I hadn’t visited [l’optométriste] Specsavers, I might have been in a very different situation today,” Katie Holroyd, 33, told Grimsby Live on Wednesday.
The 30-year-old from Lincolnshire, north London, had started suffering from migraines and back pain just before her vision appointment, but hadn’t made a big deal out of it.
But the routine exam took a turn when her optometrist found that her optic nerve was swollen. Without waiting, he would have rushed him to hospital, where he would have been diagnosed with a blood clot in the brain, in addition to a condition that causes swelling of the optic discs, papilledema, according to British media.
Fortunately, the clot was removed quickly and the woman received medication for six months, she continued.
“Extremely grateful,” Katie Holroyd thanked the optometrist, without whom she doesn’t know where she would be today given the severity of the life-threatening condition she was suffering from.
“Vision tests play an important role in making sure our eyes stay healthy. They are not only important in determining whether you should start wearing glasses […]but also to detect certain common eye conditions,” said a company spokesman, advising an eye exam every two years.