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• Got a heads-up on RP yesterday, but no diagnosis yet
• Posted: 2011-08-20 17:23:38 By Steve P
• At a regular eye exam yesterday, the doctor found "bone spicules" on my retinas that he said are classic hallmarks of RP. There are enough disclaimers here that I'm not exactly panicking:
  1) The signs are only suggestive. He didn't make a definitive diagnosis, although obviously he thought it important enough to tell me about it. (He also showed me retina scans of people with RP, and the pigmented areas on my retinas are just like theirs.)
  2) In my case, though, these bone spicules are only being detected when I'm already 56, and without any symptoms like night blindness, tunnel vision, or diminished acuity. So if in fact I do have RP, my case would seem to be extremely slow-moving.
  3) And following from the previous point and in light of RPs is generally slow progression, even if I do have it and it progresses normally, I could well be dead before it ever reached problematic levels.
  
  Still, since blindness is a potential outcome of RP, that prospect has remained stuck in my mind and left me kind of numb since I left the doctor's office yesterday.
  
  Two specific questions stick out at me: First, what else could cause retinal bone spicules? And second, what is the prognosis for RP when it's diagnosed in someone within hailing distance of 60 -- like me, for example?
  
  I appreciate the opportunity to learn from the experience of the people on this forum, and I look forward to any thoughts you'd care to offer. Thanks!

• Posted: 2012-04-01 21:27:18 By Carolina S
• Some types of medications could also be responsible for the Bone Spicules. You really have to have a Humbrey visual field in order to determine if you have had any visual field loss or not. Most goes undetected in earlier stages . In my case I was diagnosed at 41 with no signs of vision loss until I had the Humprey done.
  Best
  Carolina