I went and had my eyes checked again today. I'm supposed to go every 6 months because the pressure in my eyes has been slowly rising.
In 1999 my eye pressure was 20 and 21 which is the high end of normal. It stayed that way for awhile. Then in January this year it was 26, and today it was 32.
Apparently the inside of my eyes look fine and there is no damage, but he's at a loss as to why the pressure is continuing to increase as it has. So he's sending me to a Glaucoma Specialist to have further studies done.
He asked what medications I take and I told him. He said that none of them should be causing the increased pressure.
However, when I was at the pharmacy picking up my thyroid pill, I remembered that I forgot to mention that I also take Benadryl on a daily basis for my dermatographism/allergies. I know that certain medications of that type can be problematic if you have high blood pressure, so I asked the pharmacist about Benadryl and increased eye pressure.
Apparently it needs to be used with caution with patients who have Glaucoma. So she said it very well might be the cause of the increased eye pressure.
So I'm going to stop taking Benadryl completely and see what happens.
So far as my hives go she suggested another antihistamine that I could try that doesn't have the same negative effect as the Benadryl. Unfortunately I forgot the name!!
I think she said "Alliess" or something like that.
My worse fear next to being burned alive in a fire, is losing my vision. I could live without any one of my senses, but I'm very visually creative and losing my vision is so totally unthinkable to me
In 1999 my eye pressure was 20 and 21 which is the high end of normal. It stayed that way for awhile. Then in January this year it was 26, and today it was 32.
Apparently the inside of my eyes look fine and there is no damage, but he's at a loss as to why the pressure is continuing to increase as it has. So he's sending me to a Glaucoma Specialist to have further studies done.
He asked what medications I take and I told him. He said that none of them should be causing the increased pressure.
However, when I was at the pharmacy picking up my thyroid pill, I remembered that I forgot to mention that I also take Benadryl on a daily basis for my dermatographism/allergies. I know that certain medications of that type can be problematic if you have high blood pressure, so I asked the pharmacist about Benadryl and increased eye pressure.
Apparently it needs to be used with caution with patients who have Glaucoma. So she said it very well might be the cause of the increased eye pressure.
So I'm going to stop taking Benadryl completely and see what happens.
So far as my hives go she suggested another antihistamine that I could try that doesn't have the same negative effect as the Benadryl. Unfortunately I forgot the name!!
My worse fear next to being burned alive in a fire, is losing my vision. I could live without any one of my senses, but I'm very visually creative and losing my vision is so totally unthinkable to me