A visit with the retina specialist

I had an appointment yesterday with my retina specialist, which in of itself congers up the desire to run for the hills. I hate these visits.  I have to go through all these diagnostic tests to have someone tell me “Yup, your vision still sucks”.  I have never been told that directly (obviously, that would be rude and unprofessional).  But really in essence that is what is being communicated.  Yesterday I go and am told I have a blood vessel growing in my eye and blood pooling behind my retina.  Yahoo! (sarcasm). The good news first: a blood vessel is treatable with Avastin, technically.  So I had the proverbial (and literal) three injections in the eye.  The first is an anesthetic, followed by Avastin, and then a “balancing of the ocular pressure” by taking some fluid out.  The bad news is: my retina condition/disease (does it really matter what it is called?) is continuing to be unstable.  Another frustrating thing is that there are other drugs that are in the same family as Avastin on the market, but none of them including Avastin are “FDA approved” for ocular histoplasmosis.  Unfortunately, my condition is NOT a large population like Age-related Macular degeneration or diabetic retinopathy. So the likelihood of there being other drugs for me are slim to none especially when Avastin is $70/dose and Ilea & Lucentis are upwards of $2000/dose.  I kind of think the insurance company will wig out there.  The literature, thus far, has said there is little to no difference between Avastin and Lucentis. Don’t even get me started on the pharmaceutical industry. I worked for them for several years and let us just say they are not in the business of helping patients they are in the money making business-- that I believe falls under the heading capitalism.   I am not bitter.  Ilea is a new drug on the market that seems to have a longer therapeutic effect. It is also an anti-VEGF drug like Avastin and Lucentis.   Anti-VEGF means anti-vascular endothelial growth factor.  In layman’s terms it is an antibody that blocks a growth factor that is present when there is new and rapid growth of blood vessels; it actually spurs production of blood vessels.  In normal circumstances it is fine, but in the eye unchecked is bad. The irony is I used to do research and development on similar drugs in my career.