Maribel Carrasco

Do I have a detached retina or not? Should I wait or be operated on urgently? These were Maribel’s doubts and she didn’t want to settle for a relatively unclear solution and decided to visit IMO for answers to her questions.

A precise diagnosis is the first step in safely tackling any disease. Otherwise, uncertainty and anxiety lead you to look for alternatives that throw light on the situation, as Maribel Carrasco did. The patient went to a routine check-up in her home town of Malaga with the idea of seeing whether her myopia had increased. To her surprise, basically because she hadn’t noticed any symptoms, they detected a detached retina. Given that it was very close to the macula, they sent her urgently to Cordoba, where she went through more tests once again and was told that she didn’t have a detached retina but retinoschisis with a very poor prognostic.

In light of the confusion, Maribel decided to go back to the two centres to confirm which disease she had: “Both repeated their diagnoses, so I had two different opinions that only had one thing in common: that I shouldn’t have surgery as it would mean I would lose my eyesight. My only opinion was to carry on with everyday life and look out for any changes so that action could be taken and I could be operated on urgently. However, I wasn’t willing to just stand back and wait to see what happened, knowing that I could irreversibly lose my eyesight at any time. If I was assured that the evolution could only go downhill, I didn’t understand why they didn’t take immediate action”.

Given her concern, she was told to visit the best retina experts for another opinion and to “break the deadlock”. As she explains, “I was sent to IMO, which was when I saw Dr Carlos Mateo who immediately gave me a very clear and precise diagnosis: I had a detached retina and needed surgery quickly. His determination gave me a great deal of confidence and he assured me that my case was not an unusual one (but actually quite common in myopic patients) and that I wouldn’t irreversibly lose my eyesight like I had been told in the other centres”. That was the first time that Maribel had a good night’s sleep since the process had begun, and as she says, the doctor was later proven right: her myopia only increase by half a dioptre after the surgery, which was perfectly correctable with glasses, whereas her retina was fully recovered. “IMO not only changed my diagnosis but also my life”, she concludes.