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Dealing with a Rare Eye Disease in the Midst of COVID19
By: Patricia Salber MD, MBA (@docweighsin)
After being diagnosed with a rare eye disease, a doctor learns the best treatment is immunosuppression — a risky choice in the midst of COVID19.
I took a pass on keeping the regular follow-up visit with my retinal specialist in April. I said to myself (and anyone else who would listen), there’s no sense keeping the appointment for my rare eye disease because I was not going to accept the recommended treatment. You see, my left eye is afflicted with a progressive, most likely auto-inflammatory process, known as chorioretinitis. It is slowly getting worse.
Immunosuppression is the treatment of choice for my rare eye disease
According to my specialist at Stanford, the next step in my care is big-time immunosuppression with IV methylprednisolone (a steroid) plus IV cyclophosphamide (a chemotherapeutic and immunosuppressive drug). This scared me.
I felt like being immunosuppressed in the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic would be suicide. I also told anyone who would listen, “I would rather be blind than dead.” But the truth is I prefer neither.
Remember, we didn’t know much about the virus at that time except that it was very infectious. And…
