Olivia Richardson was just 24-years-old when she woke up to find her sight had gone after struggling with migraines for months. But doctors soon uncovered something much more sinister
A 24-year-old was left devastated when she woke up one morning and realised her vision had suddenly gone. What began as a migraine quickly turned into something far more serious.
Within hours, Olivia Richardson, from Essex, was facing the terrifying reality that her sight was deteriorating fast – and no one knew why. In early 2024, the young administrator was diagnosed with Intermediate Uveitis, a rare condition that causes inflammation inside the eye.
Just months later, in a bid to regain some control over her life, Olivia set herself the incredible challenge of climbing Mount Snowdon to raise money for eye research and awareness. “I was on a walk with my friend, and I thought, ‘something just feels off, something just isn’t right, maybe I’m getting a migraine or something because my vision just doesn’t seem normal’,” she says.
READ MORE: ‘My five-year-old daughter had headaches – then was given 12 months to live’
“I’d had migraines before, so I was used to my vision going a bit weird because of that and things looking like broken glass. So, I thought ‘I’ll sleep it off’ as that’s what normally happens with my migraines. But I woke up the next day and it was still the same.
“When I tried to explain to people how my vision was, I said ‘it feels like someone has put cling film over my eye, I feel like I need to take my eye out and wash it’. That’s how it felt.”
She visited a GP who urged her to get checked immediately. “They agreed that what I was experiencing was far from normal and so I went to the opticians. They didn’t know what was going on at that point, my left eye was so inflamed. They sent me straight to A&E as they could tell that something wasn’t right.”
At the eye clinic, Olivia was told she had Intermediate Uveitis – first in her left eye, and later discovered in her right too, despite no symptoms on that side.
“At that point the vision in my left eye was really blurred and I had literally hundreds and hundreds of floaters, but nothing in my right eye, no symptoms at all but they could see the inflammation. I can’t quite get my head round that.”
Since her diagnosis, Olivia has been in a constant flare, undergoing various treatments including immunosuppressants and oral steroids, but her doctors are still trying to find a combination that works. “They just can’t quite get a grip on it.”
Her vision changes daily. “When there is a bad flare up, I can only read about two or three lines down the chart. Back in October, I developed an epiretinal membrane as well, so now in my left eye, I also have constant distortion and even more blurry vision. I did have surgery on that in February, but I still have distortion and very blurred vision, but it is not quite as bad as it was.
“It’s hard to describe to people, but straight lines and objects for example, they look curved, like looking in a funhouse mirror. People’s faces are distorted. Things look not how they are but trying to explain that to people can be really difficult.”
At the time her vision changed, Olivia was working as a personal assistant. “My life is basically staring at screens and looking at detailed information, so my sight is very, very needed. I’m very lucky, I work for the Bank of England, and they’ve been really supportive, and they are very understanding.”
But she admits the sudden shift had a huge emotional and practical impact. “I had to go to a lot of urgent appointments where my ophthalmologist told me if the slightest thing changes, ‘come back straight away’, so it definitely had a big impact.”
Feeling powerless in the face of a condition doctors couldn’t fully explain or control, Olivia found purpose through fundraising. “The whole time I’ve just felt massively out of control with the situation. And I’m a control freak, so I like to have a handle on everything.”
Desperate to do something positive, she and her partner Reece decided to climb Mount Snowdon in September for charity Fight for Sight. “I liked Fight for Sight because I really liked their website. It has a lot of information on Uveitis and it really broke it down for me and helped me understand it.”
The climb wasn’t easy. “There was a white out at the top so no one could see hardly anything. I wasn’t really stressed about it, my coping mechanism is to try not to think about it and just go with it.
“I was also on new medication… I’d recently started immunosuppressants and a high dose of steroids and was really feeling the effects. My fatigue was kicking in and I wasn’t 100 percent myself. We’d only been walking an hour or so, and I remember saying to Reece, ‘I can’t do this, I’m literally exhausted!’
“But he was brilliant and said, ‘won’t you be gutted if you don’t do this for yourself? People know you can do it, and you’re trying to do it to raise more awareness and educate people about Uveitis. You need to do it, and you will do it!'”
And she did – raising over £2,000 in the process.
Now Olivia and Reece are taking on the Moorfields Eye to Eye Walk to support the hospital where she had her surgery. “Their staff and care was unbelievable, so I thought why not?”
Fundraising, she says, has become a vital coping mechanism. “No one knows what’s causing my uveitis or why it’s so aggressive. But knowing that I’m raising funds to go towards research, that I’m helping to increase awareness, and that I’m giving back to everyone that’s given to me… It definitely gives me a sense of pride and a big hope for the future.”
She’s also proud that her friends and family now know what Uveitis is – something none of them had even heard of before. “Now when they talk to people who have vision problems, they will be able to relate more and understand more because they know more about it through me.”
For more information about Uveitis and other sight conditions, visit Fight For Sight.
READ MORE: Dunelm shoppers ‘obsessed’ with ‘beautiful’ pendant light that ‘looks expensive’
