Dying... I swear my eyes are going😔

[DYLCC15]

Hi I frequent this forum quite often and too be honest nothing has improve. Let me give some background. Hi, I'm Dylan. For the past 6 months I've suffered severe anxiety, including GAD, HA, Panic Disorder. I have diagnosed myself with over 30 illnesses including heart disease, brain tumor, stroke, heart attack, eye cancer, spinal tumor, ALS, Multipld Sclerosis etc.

I've had 4 blood work ups, a ct scan of my head twice, diabetes tests, 2 ekgs, heart monitor, blood pressure tests, 3 eye exams, and constant doctors visits.

Recently I feel as if my eyes have gone shoddy. Let me preface by saying that I have bad short sighted vision and wear glasses. A couple of weeks ago, I visited a new optometrist. He botched my eye examination and gave me glasses that did not work. I then went back a week later, and my test results seemed a little more reasonable, but then the lens shop messed up my lenses. I was floored and then believed I was going blind. I then went to a third private practice doctor to which I got nice glasses that seemed to work, until two minutes after I put them on. Am I overanalyzing my vision?

All the eye doctors say my eyes are healthy but I swear their sight is diminishing and I'm scared. Please someone help! I think maybe my constant awareness of my vision is making things worse

[Lifelonganxiety!]

Yeah, you're probably way over analyzing this. You've been to a lot of doctors and had a lot of tests. All of which say you're fine, except that your vision isn't exactly perfect. The thing is, eyesight gets worse with age for everyone.

Some people are lucky that it doesn't affect them for most of their life, for others it comes on early (childhood, teens, 20's etc...) all are perfectly normal and happen to billions of people.

The fact that you've seen a lot of people and got the all clear (brain scans especially) tells me you're just going through the human experience and need to chill. If your eyes aren't great, keep trying til you find a pair of glasses that works for you.

If you spend a lot of time looking at screens as well, take breaks - you could just have eye strain from staring at phones and computers all day.

[DYLCC15]

Thanks for replying! I have a question....do you think overanalyzing my vision is actually making it more blurry? All eye docs have said my eyes are completely healthy. I don't understand what happened. I mean my prescription did change but I swear my eyes have gotten worse since last week. And it seems the more I focus on them, I get a headache and then after that they go to shit. I'm so scared I'll wake up blind. Do you think the ct could of missed a brain tumor? Should I get an mri or something. I thought optometrists could spot any mass affecting the optic nerve? My vision seems way worse at night too. also I'm getting mass floaters.

Dylan. Please respond again:(

[swgrl09]

Dylan, it's pretty clear how much your anxiety has gotten a hold of you. You've posted many threads about the same issues. Maybe it would be helpful to take some time away from the internet, do your CBT exercises, and try to distract yourself for a bit after that. I know on a different thread you said the thought-blocking wasn't working, but how can you practice it if you are posting about that thought over and over on here? I don't mean to sound harsh, just trying to point out something that might be helpful.

Take tomorrow to take a vacation from the internet and your symptoms. Nothing bad will happen in 1 day of not worrying about it. See if you can put off your worry for a day. If a day isn't possible, maybe half a day or a few hours. But you have to break up this cycle. It's just perpetuating the anxiety. I have been there, it's really hard to break it but typically I have found when I am really terrified, if I find something to distract myself it doesn't go away completely but can help tremendously.

[Lifelonganxiety!]

Focusing on your eyes probably wouldn't literally make them blurry, but worrying about it so much will just make muscles more tired and that in turn can cause more blurring.

Also, your over analyzing will make the blur seem worse than it actually is. I bet you have periods of the day where your eyes feel fine, but then you suddenly remember they're "supposed" to be blurry and then bam - they get blurred again. Anxiety makes you overly sensitive to symptoms and does exacerbate them.

As for the CT scan or Optometrists missing something major - extremely unlikely! Keep in mind it wasn't just one optometrist you have seen, it's many. Could one make a mistake, maybe, could all 4, 5, 6 or whatever miss something - simply put - no.

[DYLCC15]

Thanks for responding! I am not even joking, the anxiety of going blind has even crept into my dreams, and I lay in bed sometimes afraid to open them for fear going blind. Which I believe in turn, is causing them to be in a blur when I first wake up. I also judge my distance with my eyes while I am driving, looking at everything under the sun to make sure that I can still see at a distance. My abilities seem to diminish right away, as I constantly am focusing on it.

Dylan C (:

Hope to hear back, Lifelonganxiety

[Lifelonganxiety!]

Well, two things there - pretty much everyone's eyes are blurry in the morning!

Secondly, constantly testing your eyes to see at different distances puts strain on the muscles of the eye. When your eyes are strained, they lose focus - hence blurring.

Mine are blurry a lot, but that's because I spend 8 hours a day staring at a computer screen.

You need to relax more. Put a warm compress across your eyes / forehead for a while. Try not to keep testing your eyes, but most importantly, get help for the underlying issue here which is severe health anxiety. You CAN get a great quality of life back, but I think you'll need more help than is available on here.

[DYLCC15]

I do believe that from the time I wake up I do test my eyes A LOT. I immediately start looking at everything, it's ridiculous. Today I have been much better with it, but it has not gone away entirely. I am set to visit someone in the hospital in a little bit and feel as if I am going to try to read all the road signs and such. I really need to stop, and I think knowing that I have the tendency to do that will allow me to not do it as badly.

Dyl

---------- Post added at 20:58 ---------- Previous post was at 20:56 ----------

isn't it amazing what all anxiety can do to the body? I know nothing is wrong with my eyes, and it is so hard to accept that this is anxiety