When expert and professional advice make curing difficult-to-diagnose pathologies possible

15 January 2016

Tamara Limonta is a beautiful lady from Ticino who came to SERI Lugano the first time last September after requesting an urgent consultation due to a very difficult condition. She had been suffering from excessive tearing and intense burning for over one month and a half.

She had been diagnosed with conjunctivitis but, despite over 10 days of treatment and numerous tests, not only had she not resolved the problem, her situation had even deteriorated considerably.

“Dr Pinelli received me without delay. The consultation was set for a few hours after my telephone call.”

Tamara underwent tests to ensure an accurate diagnosis, which is crucial in deciding upon a correct and therefore effective course of treatment.

She had an acute hyperaemia with conjunctival hypertrophy which had caused burning eyes, excessive tearing and, more recently, pain and visual impairment for far too long. Even just keeping her eyes open had become problematic.

“People at work, where I specialise in marketing, had started to notice it. We meet many people on a daily basis and my role is to promote the organisation and its services to those who already know it as well as to potential clients. Obviously someone who presents herself in tears and with lowered eyes is not a great visiting card!”

Tamara lives in Pazzallo, a delightful town in the municipality of Lugano on the slopes of Monte San Salvatore, above Paradiso, where the Switzerland Eye Research Institute is, and during her leisure time she devotes herself to reading and taking long walks on the mountain, which affords exceptional views of the Gulf of Lugano.

She was given a close diagnostic examination aimed above all at providing a differential diagnosis to explain why she had not benefited from the drugs that had been prescribed. The examination included an endothelial cell count and keratometry, alongside the objective examination and the analysis of the tear film and certain micro deposits on the rim of the eyelid. In this way it was possible to identify exactly the pathogen responsible for the inflammation and to prescribe a targeted therapy, to be started immediately and continued for at least six days, after which time it was further tailored on the basis of the evidence obtained from the checks and examinations conducted after the first consultation.

“Today I am very satisfied. My eyes have no more problems, where before I was afraid I was not going to be able to resolve them at all.  And now I am considering the possibility of undergoing an operation to definitively resolve my initial presbyopia, which forces me to distance the text I am reading. Not being able to use my eyes optimally has allowed me to understand the value of eyesight, and now I always want to be at the top of my visual capacity both when I am reading a book and when I am walking in the mountains!”