How and when can RP be diagnosed?
“I was diagnosed at 14 years old and before that I always remember not being able to see at night and being ‘klutzy’,” remembers Rob Lee. “I was bad at soccer and basketball and didn’t know why. I figured that I saw the way everyone else did, but just wasn’t as good as others. Being diagnosed with RP was somewhat of a relief to me because it gave me a reason why I couldn’t do certain things and why I was a little different from my friends and brothers.” Many people with RP, especially older people, tell stories of the difficulty they experienced in getting an accurate diagnosis of their condition. Increasingly sophisticated diagnostic technology and growing awareness among physicians is helping to make situations like this less common. RP is usually diagnosed in young adulthood, although certain forms of RP are evident in early childhood and other forms may not appear until later in life.
