Hi I’m Kimberly Cockerham and I’m a board certified ophthalmologist with sub-specialty training in orbit, plastics and neuroophthalmology.
Thyroid eye disease is a vision-threatening, chronic disorder. Patients usual present with bulging of their eyes, redness, swelling, and complete disfigurement. They don’t feel good about how they look, they’re in pain. They’re angry, and frustrated. When somebody comes in and they’re experiencing these symptoms, what are they really going through?
It is very likely that a patient has seen multiple other practitioners with no results. I’ve had numerous patients who are approaching a decade or more of failed therapeutics. Now things are different.
Prior to January of 2020 when TEPEZZA was FDA approved as the first targeted treatment for thyroid eye disease, there weren’t a lot of options. Now I have TEPEZZA. It acts pretty quickly, and TEPEZZA makes the muscles behind the eye smaller. The redness and swelling go away. So, it’s given me another tool in my tool chest.
Because of TEPEZZA, my conversations with my patients have changed for the better. I have a patient, and she gave me a picture of herself just before the thyroid eye disease started. And then she showed me a picture of her in the midst of the disease, all alone, sad, frustrated. And then she sent me a picture just a couple of weeks after her last infusion, and her proptosis had improved, her eyes weren’t bulging, she was really looking much more like herself again, and there she was, with her son, her grandchild and just beaming.
Each patient’s thyroid eye disease journey is different, but it’s really rewarding to be part of these patients’ lives. Now, with TEPEZZA, I can help impact that journey.