Specsavers' optician spots brain condition after doctor misses signs During the eye examination at Specsavers in Burnley, optometrist Faheem Hassan, 27, noticed that Miss Burns's optic nerve was very swollen. He explained the seriousness of the problem and immediately referred her to Burnley General Hospital. She went straight from the store to Burnley Hospital where staff could immediately see the seriousness of the condition and sent her in an ambulance to nearby Blackburn Hospital's Accident and Emergency unit. Just a few hours later, doctors performed an emergency lumber puncture procedure to relieve the pressure on Miss Burns's brain. Specialists later discovered that the mother had two rare conditions, a narrowing of the veins in her brain, coupled with intracranial hypertension - or high blood pressure on the brain. Left untreated, the pressure would have blinded her and the veins in her brain may have ruptured, with potentially fatal results. To ease the pressure inside her brain, doctors fitted her with a stent, a small mesh tube that is used to treat narrow or weak arteries. Miss Burns said: "I had started to get splitting headaches all the time and they gradually got worse and worse. I went to the doctor and he said it was probably just a viral infection which would clear up after a while. But two months on, the headaches were just as bad, if not worse. That was when I went to the optician's. Hassan said: "Normally the optic nerve head appearance is flat, but at the back of Katie's eyes it was very raised and swollen, looking as though it was being pushed outwards."