“You know, Doctor, it happened so fast. One minute I was fine, the next I felt a stabbing pain in my eye! Now we are here in the ED with you.”
Solving mysteries is often an emergency medicine practice’s main focus. This patient experienced a sudden onset of severe eye pain with no history of eye disease. It’s the famed mystery diagnosis, and it drags on as test after test comes up negative. All the while you’re thinking of the old adage, When you hear hoofbeats behind you, don’t expect to see a zebra. But sometimes it might be a zebra, just as it was in this case: neuromyelitis optica (NMO).