Episode Description

Dental hygienist Kerry Lepicek joins Jackie Sanders and Andrew Johnston to share her personal experience with rapidly progressing glaucoma and the dramatic vision loss that followed. She discusses the subtle visual changes she initially dismissed, the importance of advocating for herself, and how the experience has changed the way she thinks about her health and professional life.

The conversation also looks at what hygienists should consider when caring for patients with glaucoma, including lighting, positioning, sunglasses, appointment frequency, medications, dry mouth, and the importance of looking beyond the mouth. Kerry also offers a reminder that hygienists spend so much time encouraging patients to prioritize their health—but clinicians need to make time for their own preventive care too.

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A conversation about seeing differently

Andrew Johnston:
We are endorsed by Smokey the Bear.

Kerry Lepicek:
Are we really? Are you actually serious?

Jackie Sanders:
No, it would be nice if we were.

Kerry Lepicek:
Okay, you say yes and I almost believed him, and then you said no. So you've got to be my honest person.

Jackie Sanders:
Why would you believe him?

Kerry Lepicek:
Well, see, because I can't really see him anyway, so I'll just look at you and you'll be my person for feedback. Legit, I can't see you. So if I literally, legit, if I look here, I pretty much can't see.

Jackie Sanders:
Smart.

Jackie Sanders:
Welcome back, everyone. This is Jackie Sanders with RDH Magazine and the RDH Podcast. Today, we are coming to you live from RDH Under One Roof, and I'm hanging out with my co-host, Andrew.

Andrew Johnston:
Hey, you guys, I was hoping that we had those little sound effects where we're like...

Jackie Sanders:
Well, I was just waiting for you to do that.

Andrew Johnston:
Let me be on the co-host seat again. We have Kerry Lepicek today. Very excited about this.

Jackie Sanders:
Yes.

Andrew Johnston:
As you guys heard in the intro, Kerry can't see. And that's what we're going to talk about today. And it's going to be a riveting podcast. Stay tuned for this one. You guys are going to love it.

Jackie Sanders:
I don't know. Kerry, I'm just going to look at you and say, what do you have to say to respond to Andrew?

Kerry Lepicek:
Well, I want to clarify. I can see, but mostly out of one eye. So I spy with my one eye. I see Jackie. Not necessarily can I see fully Andrew looking straight ahead. And this was an intentional seating arrangement that you put him on your left side. So you just couldn't see him.

Jackie Sanders:
Absolutely.

Kerry Lepicek:
That was, well, he set it up. I think he knew that it was my left side was my challenging, and he's like, you know...

Kerry Lepicek:
You sit to my right, so then you don't have to. Just message. If he texts you, just make sure you text him back.

Jackie Sanders:
Otherwise, you know, this is the relationship you get when you do a podcast with him.

When a vision change isn't "just a spot"

Andrew Johnston:
Okay, I want to start off by, we have a lot of similarities in life. I think. When's your birthday, Kerry?

Kerry Lepicek:
July 20th. When's my birthday?

Andrew Johnston:
July 20th. What?

Kerry Lepicek:
When's my birthday?

Andrew Johnston:
Doesn't matter. This is not July 6th.

Jackie Sanders:
We're all Cancer.

Kerry Lepicek:
It doesn't work for the story. I'm trying to tell Jackie.

Andrew Johnston:
Here's the thing. Kerry, what eye was affected with this recent injury?

Kerry Lepicek:
My left eye.

Andrew Johnston:
Guess what? I also lost my sight in my left eye.

Kerry Lepicek:
No, you did not.

Andrew Johnston:
I swear to you. I have scar tissue on my left eye.

Kerry Lepicek:
Oh, I have left.

Andrew Johnston:
I can't have LASIK surgery because of all the scar tissue from infection 20-plus years ago.

Kerry Lepicek:
I had no idea.

Andrew Johnston:
I know, buddy. I didn't know it was your left eye. Otherwise, I would have said something earlier, but yeah.

Hey, just hang out right here with us, Jackie. Hang in there.

So while I would love to make this podcast about me, obviously, this is really about you. So let's talk about your injury to your eye. I will tell my eye story another day.

Kerry Lepicek:
Okay.

Andrew Johnston:
So leading up to the events, what happened?

Kerry Lepicek:
So I was diagnosed with glaucoma in April of 2025. And the only thing I knew before that was I had a little spot. And gosh knows, if you know me, I travel a lot. I get the pleasure of traveling for work. I get the pleasure of speaking across Canada and the US and internationally.

And I was on the road and I thought I was sitting in the sun in Aruba. I was like, it must be the sun because I had a spot in my eye. And I thought, okay, let it go.

Got busy because when you look out of one eye, you never do.

And so fast forward, I'm at PDC speaking in BC, and I was like, oh, I've got this. I thought an ocular migraine, and I've got the spot that's just not going away. And I thought, oh, I've got a floater. I must go back to my room and fall asleep.

So I had a nap and I woke up and that spot wasn't going anywhere. And so I took it back and got busy being a mom and thinking, okay, if I look out of two eyes, I don't see it. But if I look out of one, it's always a little black spot.

So I should have, looking back at it, gone right away. But we get busy, we put it off, we don't think it's a big deal.

And so by the time I was diagnosed, I already had moderate glaucoma. And I can tell you it progressed so fast, different than anybody else. All the specialists I ended up seeing kept saying, this is a slow progression and you have let this go.

And I kept saying, absolutely not.

From the time I saw it in Aruba, it was a very small millimeters. And then by the time I saw it a month later at PDC, it had already doubled. And by the time I went, and by the very beginning of April, it had already grown again.

And so I've gone from seeing to pretty much 80% vision loss in my left eye. I can still see shadows, but I cannot read with it. I can't do anything out of it at all.

So I now function with the good one eye, and I am—it's been a learning curve, I'm not gonna lie. It's been a unique challenge.

Jackie Sanders:
And when you shared this story with me, you shared that normally they only see this quick progress with people who have other health conditions, of which you had none of them.

Kerry Lepicek:
Yes, correct. I had none of them. I was mid-40s. I take no medication. I work out avidly. I sleep well. I do all the things that I think are right, and nobody could understand why.

Sometimes these things can happen from trauma, and I've never had a concussion. I've never had, like, any concerns that way. Broken lots of bones, but never did my head. My forehead never got affected by it.

I don't know. Maybe there was something back when I was a baby that my parents were not telling me, but generally speaking, I have not had a head injury.

So with not having any of the traditional risk factors, I fought an uphill battle for myself constantly to push back against medical professionals and say, this is not right. With the medication you have me on is not working. Things are progressing.

And, as a dental hygienist, and many people can relate to this, we don't want to make a big deal out of something if it's nothing. And so I lived in the, am I just being overreactive? Am I just being too sensitive? I don't want to interrupt them. I don't want to bug them.

What if I go to the emergency department? What if I go to see my specialist again and he says or she says, it's nothing? Then I feel like I just wasted their time and I'm not listening.

And that's been a real interesting advocation for myself that now, as soon as I get a headache, I watch it, I manage it. As soon as I see any changes or I start to notice that I'm a bit off-center a little bit with when I'm walking and things like that, I instantly go in and get my pressure checked because the only way to know if you've got glaucoma is to have your pressure checked.

That's it.

And so once you lose the vision, it will not come back and regenerate at this point.

How often should you get your eyes checked?

Jackie Sanders:
I've got an interesting question for you, and I don't mean to put you on the spot, but prior to this, how often did you get your eyes checked?

Kerry Lepicek:
That's a good question. I was really good about going every year, and then I moved up to a small town in lovely Port Perry. Shout-out to Port Perry, Ontario, and it had been two years since I got my vision checked.

But usually this disease usually progresses so slowly that by the time people see vision loss, it's been happening for a long time.

And then it wasn't until I ended up needing eye surgery in October that the specialist downtown said, no, you're right. This has progressed much faster. There is no way you went from April, when we had all the imaging, to this in this period of time.

What is glaucoma?

Andrew Johnston:
Hi.

No, I just had a quick question. So glaucoma, just can we go back and actually define what glaucoma is? Because I mean, I assume you've done some research on it. Maybe not. I've also brought it up just in case.

Kerry Lepicek:
Okay, good. So what did Doctor Google tell us about it?

Andrew Johnston:
Yeah, I mean, this is AI tells us, like, glaucoma is a group of eye diseases.

Because here's the thing. I think that we could, like we say any disease of the mouth, we pretty much know at least of it.

Glaucoma—I don't talk to a lot of old people with glaucoma, right? That's what you always think about. Like, hey, it's like grandma and grandpa had it back in the day or whatever.

Kerry Lepicek:
And just to that point, when you see your patients and they say they've got glaucoma, it's one of those things you're like, okay, yeah, it's just eye drops. How could eye drops affect their visit?

But it really does because the lighting is the issue. So when you have your patients that have glaucoma, make sure you've got their dark glasses on. If you're lying them back and you've got that headlamp, please try to keep it out of their eyes the best that they can because for many people, we are so sensitive.

So you may see me around the conference with sunglasses on or wearing my wonderful pirate patch because I need to block that light so I can function and kind of manage the day.

Andrew Johnston:
Do you wear, like, those giant oversized glasses?

Kerry Lepicek:
I have those, but now I have a little bit more fashion-forward. So I want to wear the biggest ones I can get that actually look a little bit more fashionable. So thank you for the people that help me.

Andrew Johnston:
Because you might do need, like, full coverage. You can't let things go out the side or over the top or whatever.

So anyway, so to finish it, so it's the diseases that damage the [caused by abnormally high intraocular pressure], which now I know.

I mean, I remember that they've always done those pressure tests. Like, I go in every year, right? And, like, a puff of air or whatever. They'd never ever say anything about it, though. They're like, hey, this has gone up by however many units that they measure the pressure.

When you were in Aruba, before that, when you said that first little dot, you had no other dots ever. Like, that's the very, very first time that you had it.

Kerry Lepicek:
Well, see, the reason I discredited it a little bit is when I was pregnant, I got—I had a floater—or not floaters. I had silent migraines, so I'd get these little spots, they'd come and go, and everyone was like, they're just migraines. You don't have a headache, so just go and rest.

So I just assumed for some reason, somehow 14 years later, I was getting those again. But up to that point, I had no idea or no notice that it.

And the other thing with glaucoma is usually it's to do with fluids, so my eye cannot—that eye is not able to let the fluid drain out. So therefore then you get the pressure buildup, and then that pressure against your optic nerve ends up basically—your optic nerve dies.

And so it's the death of your optic nerve in that space.

Andrew Johnston:
So it's not a paralysis of it. There's no reversal of this.

Kerry Lepicek:
At this point, there is no reversal.

Andrew Johnston:
So what was the surgery for then?

Treating the pressure

Kerry Lepicek:
To reduce the pressure. So basically they took a laser and poked holes in my eye to allow the fluid to drain out.

Yes, and you, as much as I could see, gosh bless the doctor, he's like, so don't look at it.

I'm like, trust me, I can't even see what you're doing, so don't you worry about it.

But, like, he's coming in with a laser, and I thought with all the laser stuff I do and how it promotes healing, I thought this is going to be great laser. No pain, no problem.

I'm like, oh my goodness, no. They burnt—basically create holes to allow the fluid to come out. So it was interesting.

Andrew Johnston:
That is interesting.

Jackie Sanders:
Wow.

Kerry Lepicek:
Yeah.

Andrew Johnston:
Did they give you, like, an anesthetic, a numbing agent of sorts?

Kerry Lepicek:
Oh yeah, I bought this out.

Andrew Johnston:
Topical or did it get—Is there a depth of numb?

Kerry Lepicek:
Oh, depth. Yeah, no, I had full-out numbing of my full—I was frozen from my whole facial aspect was completely frozen. And that was—that was a great-size needle. I can tell you that much.

I thought that.

Jackie Sanders:
He still felt it.

Andrew Johnston:
He still felt the laser.

Kerry Lepicek:
Interesting.

Andrew Johnston:
That's fascinating. Okay, so moving forward. So what's the problem? What goes on from here for you?

Living with the uncertainty

Kerry Lepicek:
From here, for me, acceptance. Acceptance that glaucoma can now show up in my other eye. And I'm really hoping I kind of live day-to-day now.

2025, I just feel like I survived because as much as I was having the best professional year of my life, I was having the hardest personal year of my life.

And so I've committed 2026 now just wanting to be present and to be thankful for what I have.

So, we all have our own struggles and mine is different. I just learned about Andrew's struggle, and I know Jackie's got her own struggles in many things.

Andrew Johnston:
She's got a lot of struggles.

Kerry Lepicek:
If you want to—

I wasn't about to call her out on it, just saying flat out. I just made a general statement, but you, okay, you went there?

Andrew Johnston:
That's fine.

Kerry Lepicek:
That's fine.

So I just think what we need to do, what's next for me, is just using or helping inspire people to be comfortable with some of the things that are going on because everybody has their concerns, and we have a lot still to be thankful for.

Are hygienists taking care of themselves?

Andrew Johnston:
Do you feel like your messaging is, though, more for, hey clinicians, get your eyes checked so this doesn't impact your career? Or is this, hey, I want to raise awareness, they know how to deliver better patient care?

Kerry Lepicek:
I think it's both. I think it's both. I really want to get a message out there.

I'm creating a new program that's basically, are we healthy? And it kind of goes across both aspects. We have all these experiences and all these expectations for our patients, but are we really living that dream? Are we really following through on what we need to do?

Are we getting our hearing tested? Are we getting our eyes tested? Are we making time for us to get our teeth cleaned? Are we doing all those things, the mammograms, the blood work, all the things that we know we're supposed to do?

And that in itself, I think if we can look after ourselves better, then we can also better our patients moving forward.

So I think it's a both aspect, but a bit of a different angle than what I've traditionally have done before.

What glaucoma can mean for the hygiene appointment

Andrew Johnston:
When our patients have, like, perio versus a healthy periodontium, we increase our frequency of appointments with us, right? Is the same if someone has glaucoma, regardless of the stage, do they end up going in a lot more frequently?

Additional reading: Eye spy: Exploring the mouth-eye connection

Kerry Lepicek:
Yes.

Andrew Johnston:
How frequent can it be?

Kerry Lepicek:
For, like, are you talking for eye visits?

Andrew Johnston:
For eye visits. Yeah.

Kerry Lepicek:
So I'm on—I was on an eight-week recall.

Andrew Johnston:
Oh my gosh.

Kerry Lepicek:
I was on an eight-week recall where every week I would go in, they'd measure my pressure, they'd take all the photos, they would do everything.

And I literally sat there and was, like, crying before. I'm like, is it progressing? What's happening? For so long, every time that appointment was never good news.

Now I'm excited. I'm at a 12-week recall. So, you know, and I'm comfortable with that.

And my ophthalmologist is very good. She's like, you got a problem? You just run to any emergency department, and I'm always a call away, and she knows my whole history.

So I'm able to manage that, but absolutely they will shorten the recall.

Most people when they have glaucoma, though, they don't have vision loss. They haven't had full nerve damage at this point. They just have high pressure.

And so most of the time in that situation, it's about a six-month checkup with the ophthalmologist with those pressure checks. And then once you progress, then you hit those much shorter frequencies.

Andrew Johnston:
Interesting.

Kerry Lepicek:
Yeah.

Andrew Johnston:
So I think it's appropriate then, you know, for the listeners out there. I was actually—one of our newsletters went out, Jackie. I think it might have been the RDH eVillage maybe this morning.

Jackie Sanders:
Absolutely.

Andrew Johnston:
I think it would be appropriate if you notice one of your patients has, whether they've self-identified as saying, I've had glaucoma, or there's a medication they're taking or whatever that you have identified with it, that you do check in with it.

Hey, how often are you seeing your eye doctor? Like, this is important.

I really, as our profession moves forward, I really want to position us into making sure that we're looking beyond the mouth, right? That's something that we've been talking about for, I don't know, decades now.

But as legislation keeps changing, as the rules keep kind of moving on us, the goalposts keep moving on us, we need to show that we have value in the practice. I think that's one of the ways that we can do it.

Kerry Lepicek:
We can, and it's another way that you can show your patients you care for them. So when you see that, just adjusting, like I said, making sure they've got the dark lights, maybe the overhead light is the issue, turning it off, making it more comfortable.

For me, sometimes the transition between dark to light and those aspects are an issue, or even reading some forms. It just, depending on what that lighting is, it does make it a lot more challenging.

Protecting the other eye

Jackie Sanders:
I've got a question. So if they were to diagnose your right eye as starting to have issues, is there a medication that they can put you on to reduce that pressure?

Kerry Lepicek:
Yes, so I will be on eye drops. I'm on eye drops for the rest of my life at this point. And there's different variations and types of eye drops that way.

And so they are—that's why I go so frequently—is we are double-checking the health of my right eye. That is, we are in hospice care of my left eye, and we are trying to keep my right eye as fit.

However, having said that, now I have had to change my significant lifestyle. I have to be careful about lifting weight because it's about pressure. So I cannot lift weights, and being in that 40 range, we want to lift weights, we want to do all those things, and I have to do it very carefully as we're going forward.

I also have to be very careful about overexerting myself. So, you know, working out and in more of a gentle warm-up is what my doctors have told me. That's how I can work out now.

Andrew Johnston:
Geriatric warm.

Kerry Lepicek:
I said warm.

Andrew Johnston:
I thought you're warming up to geriatric.

Jackie Sanders:
So can you sleep flat?

Kerry Lepicek:
I can now because my pressure is stable. But as soon as—when I was having my problems, I was literally sleeping semi.

Jackie Sanders:
So where I'm going with all of this is, for the hygienist, they should be aware if someone with glaucoma, depending on the level they're at, whether they can lay back flat or not. They need sunglasses.

Are there any oral implications to the eye drops that you possibly could share or know of?

Kerry Lepicek:
I was on oral antibiotic. I was on oral medication as well. And when I was on those, because things were so bad, my mouth was dry, everything was dry.

And what I find with the eye drops is that as you put them in, they just taste terrible. So again, giving them—if they're depending on the frequencies, what are you doing after you take your drops? Are you able to clear maybe the bad taste with just some water, or are you leaning towards sugary drinks and then having that conversation about risk and making sure their home care and everything is—

And the other thing is take your blood pressure, make sure you know what their blood pressure is. There is some understanding and risks potentially with high blood pressure and glaucoma risk.

And so there's some stuff that's coming out soon, hopefully to tie that together.

A reminder to take care of yourself

Andrew Johnston:
Excellent. Kerry, thanks for being here today.

Kerry Lepicek:
Thank you for having me. It is so much fun. It's always fun hanging out with you guys. I appreciate it.

Thank you all the listeners for listening. Please make sure you get your eyes tested. Make sure you look after yourself and look after your patients just that little bit better.

Andrew Johnston:
Thank you.