Hello all - I've had mg since 2000 and had my thymus removed in 2005. Had a could of good years after surgery, but this last year has not been fun. I started having really bad dv about 4 months ago. I upped the mestinon, started IVIG again and slept a lot more. Nothing helped. I ended up having to wear a patch over one eye to drive and work. Since I work as an accountant, it is difficult to work on the computer with a patch on one eye! The other eye seems even more tired!

I went to the eye doc (who I've been seeing for 20+ years because I'm diabetic and he does all my checkups) and he said the only thing he would recommend would be prisms in my lenses. I went ahead and got new glasses with strong prisms in both lenses and YEA!, they worked!! I can see again! I use my regular glasses until my eyes get tired and the dv starts to get bad (about mid-morning), then I switch to my prism glasses.

I saw my neuro last week and told him what I had done. His response was that he wished I hadn't done that because my eyes won't get better because I'm wearing prisms now.

Am I crazy or is he? (He is really a good doctor, we just disagree on this one issue) I think that because the receptors are the problem, my eye's won't get better until the mg stops attacking the receptors in my eyes and moves elsewhere. How can it possbly help my eyes get better to wear a patch over one and overuse the other one? When I asked him the question, he couldn't really explain why, just that was what he had read.

Does anyone have any experience with this? I'm willing to admit I could be wrong, I just need to understand why.

Thanks for your help

Hi, Juanitad. It's nice to see you again.

If you have lazy eye, which can be caused by ptosis, then a patch will "make" the lazy eye work harder. This only works before the age of ten, which I am quite certain you are beyond now!

I had supposed lazy eye diagnosed at age 10 but it was really MG/ptosis. Turns out I've had MG my entire life.

In MG, there's something called "enhanced ptosis." Stupid name really. Anyway, if you pull up on one eyelid, then the other will go down and they can go back and forth like that for awhile. A patch won't change that nor will it change the autoimmune attack of your receptors, just like you said.

I don't think your doc is crazy but not completely well-informed. The only thing that would help you is immunosuppression or Mestinon.

Have you seen a neuro-ophthalmologist to make sure it is the MG? It probably is but with diabetes, you should make sure there isn't some secondary reason making things worse.

I'm glad the prisms work! I really doubt they would "hurt" your eyes or their muscles! It's not really logical.

Hope everything else is going well for you.

Annie