Pinkharts9
10-09-15, 17:29
This is my very first post so go easy on me. :)
I have been suffering from terrible health anxiety since May of this year. It escalated greatly towards the end of June & July & August were unbearable. Although I'm not well at the moment at all, I am finally, slowly starting to see a light at the end of the tunnel. I wanted to share my story because it will make me feel better but also because it might help someone else out there too.
My health anxiety this summer has revolved entirely around my vision. I've had HA in the past that was related to losing my hair, feeling lumps under my arms and feeling like I couldn't swallow, to name a few. But the name of this current game is, "SOMETHING IS WRONG WITH MY EYES!".
I started back in May. I was looking out the window in my new office on a very sunny day and noticed a bunch of white dots going by in my vision. The harder I stared, the more I saw them. So this kicked off weeks of being afraid to look out of the window or up at the sky. I usually didn't notice anything (upon giving a quick glance) but if I stared, I saw them. Had a panic attack while at a Greek food festival over it. Went home & sobbed (not because I missed the Greek food, sad as that was, but because I was scared). During this time, I didn't really notice my eye floaters or think anything of them. I've had floaters since I was 20ish (I'm 36) & the never, ever, EVER bothered me other than being an occasional slight annoyance. But one day at work I thought, "I'm seeing these white spots, what else might be wrong?" and began obsessively staring out the window or up at the bright overhead lights & moving my eyes around. Well, you can pretty much guess what happened next. I saw tons of floaters. Floaters I had never noticed in my entire life. Opaque blobs that moved in front of both eyes under very bright lights, cobwebs, worms, black dots, silvery specks - you name it. Had the mother of all panic attacks at work & literally thought I was going to die on the bathroom floor at my office.
Now up until these white specks/floaters became so visible to me, I was not worried about my eyes AT ALL. I hadn't had an exam in about 10 years (not good, I know!) & although my vision had changed, I noticed nothing drastic & wasn't worried. But in a an instant, it all changed in my head. SOMETHING WAS HORRIBLY WRONG. I made an appt. with my optometrist & went a few days later. He said that other than seeing cataracts beginning to form in my lens in both eyes (expected, due to prednisone usage as a child when I had leukemia), my eyes were healthy & normal. He couldn't even see a single floater in my vitreous fluid & he looked very thoroughly. I passed his exam with flying colors. He told me not to think about the floaters & my brain would eventually stop seeing them. I figured I would give it a try. I should have felt relieved after the eye exam but I did not. At all.
About a week later I was in a grocery store with my sister & looked up at the bright lights, I saw the weird blob floaters in both eyes. Immediately felt a panic attack starting & left. Went home, sobbed for hours & felt like I was going crazy. The next day I called my optometrist again & asked if I could come by to talk to him. I told him that the blob floaters (as I call them) were really bothering me & I felt certain it was something sinister. He didn't think it was but made me an appt. with an ophthalmologist. I noted that at this time, I was hyperfocused on the blob floaters & saw them EVERYWHERE. I was not, at that time, seeing my other floaters or the white sparks. Not much anyway. I waited a miserable five days & then went to my dr. appt. Long story short - he saw nothing wrong with my eyes either. He told me to relax & my brain would heal. Easier said than done!
Now we're into mid-July. My summer had been miserable. I was anxious every day. From morning to night. I often woke up with a brick in my stomach & that butterfly feeling. My skin was hot & I felt like I had electric energy running through my body. My heart would beat hard & that would make me see my heartbeat in my eyes - which also scared me. I saw my therapist, talked to my brother (who suffers from anxiety problems too) & I had been to two doctors. Everyone said I needed to relax. Relieve stress. Let my brain heal. So I was trying. But every day was torture as I was certain I had a serious eye problem. I was comfortable wearing sunglasses inside & out. They were (are) my security blanket. I started to avoid looking at the sky, looking at lights, moving my eyes quickly. You name it. I was hyperfocused on my vision so absolutely any perceived movement terrified me. I would see a shadow, a glimmer in sunlight, a dust particle, a fly, a spot on the wall - you name - and think it was my eyes going wonky. I noticed everything! Every floater, every after image, every sparkle. EVERY THING. Even my cataract symptoms, which are legit, had never bothered me before. Ever. Now, in the dark, I could swear everything had a halo, everything was glowing, all light was irritating me.
Google is NOT your friend. It's just not. I started googling every eye issue under the sun & convincing myself I had them all. I started noticing other "problems" with my vision I had never noticed before. I started checking to see if I had symptoms for every eye issue possible. Constantly testing my eyes, staring at things, moving them around. Obsessively. It was a total nightmare.
Off the top of my head, here's a list of eye symptoms I could swear that I had (or still have) since starting to obsess in May: tons of floaters of all kinds, white eye sparks in sunlight, silver sparks, blue dots, white flashes, trouble reading, shaky eyes, jumpy vision, snowy vision, Irlen syndrome, prolonged after images, streaking, trouble focusing, seeing halos & starbursts, thinking my irises looked odd, and several more I'm forgetting at the moment. You get the idea. :wacko:
What's bad: I'm still have bad anxiety daily & I'm still seeing a lot of visual disturbances.
What's good: I KNOW it's anxiety related. I have started to focus on positive thinking. I KNOW this is going to pass. I know that it won't pass overnight & that anxiety takes a great toll on us & it takes time to heal. So I'm not expecting immediate results. I KNOW that anxiety causes visual disturbances. I KNOW that obsessing & hyper focusing on anything can make it 100 times worse than it is. I also know that floaters are common & normal. I found out that the white sparks are Blue Field Entropic Phenomenon and are also common & normal. And I'm seeing them all so much more because I can't stop thinking about them. I believe that I see other sparks & dots (occasionally) because of stress & that they are also normal. I KNOW that my sensitivity to sunlight & possibly my sensitively to bright white paper & computer screens is related to my cataracts. While it's possible I could have another issue, it's unlikely. Most of my "symptoms" can be explained away or are fleeting & what doctors would say are normal. I think all the focusing & obsession on my eyes has made me constantly see things that other people simply don't notice. I'm struggling but trying to get a grip on this bout of HA. I have NEVER had HA this bad in my life. And all of the anxiety & panic attacks are making me sick & taking a massive toll on my health & happiness.
I hope other people with current vision HA will see this & it will help them. I'd also love to have a few people to talk to or commiserate with on this. Especially if you've had similar issues but are now doing ok. I would LOVE to hear from you. :hugs:I'm hoping that this is the beginning of my recovery. I'm feeling rather positive today & have laughed a lot at work today. So I'm hoping. Fingers crossed.
Thanks everyone! :)
I have been suffering from terrible health anxiety since May of this year. It escalated greatly towards the end of June & July & August were unbearable. Although I'm not well at the moment at all, I am finally, slowly starting to see a light at the end of the tunnel. I wanted to share my story because it will make me feel better but also because it might help someone else out there too.
My health anxiety this summer has revolved entirely around my vision. I've had HA in the past that was related to losing my hair, feeling lumps under my arms and feeling like I couldn't swallow, to name a few. But the name of this current game is, "SOMETHING IS WRONG WITH MY EYES!".
I started back in May. I was looking out the window in my new office on a very sunny day and noticed a bunch of white dots going by in my vision. The harder I stared, the more I saw them. So this kicked off weeks of being afraid to look out of the window or up at the sky. I usually didn't notice anything (upon giving a quick glance) but if I stared, I saw them. Had a panic attack while at a Greek food festival over it. Went home & sobbed (not because I missed the Greek food, sad as that was, but because I was scared). During this time, I didn't really notice my eye floaters or think anything of them. I've had floaters since I was 20ish (I'm 36) & the never, ever, EVER bothered me other than being an occasional slight annoyance. But one day at work I thought, "I'm seeing these white spots, what else might be wrong?" and began obsessively staring out the window or up at the bright overhead lights & moving my eyes around. Well, you can pretty much guess what happened next. I saw tons of floaters. Floaters I had never noticed in my entire life. Opaque blobs that moved in front of both eyes under very bright lights, cobwebs, worms, black dots, silvery specks - you name it. Had the mother of all panic attacks at work & literally thought I was going to die on the bathroom floor at my office.
Now up until these white specks/floaters became so visible to me, I was not worried about my eyes AT ALL. I hadn't had an exam in about 10 years (not good, I know!) & although my vision had changed, I noticed nothing drastic & wasn't worried. But in a an instant, it all changed in my head. SOMETHING WAS HORRIBLY WRONG. I made an appt. with my optometrist & went a few days later. He said that other than seeing cataracts beginning to form in my lens in both eyes (expected, due to prednisone usage as a child when I had leukemia), my eyes were healthy & normal. He couldn't even see a single floater in my vitreous fluid & he looked very thoroughly. I passed his exam with flying colors. He told me not to think about the floaters & my brain would eventually stop seeing them. I figured I would give it a try. I should have felt relieved after the eye exam but I did not. At all.
About a week later I was in a grocery store with my sister & looked up at the bright lights, I saw the weird blob floaters in both eyes. Immediately felt a panic attack starting & left. Went home, sobbed for hours & felt like I was going crazy. The next day I called my optometrist again & asked if I could come by to talk to him. I told him that the blob floaters (as I call them) were really bothering me & I felt certain it was something sinister. He didn't think it was but made me an appt. with an ophthalmologist. I noted that at this time, I was hyperfocused on the blob floaters & saw them EVERYWHERE. I was not, at that time, seeing my other floaters or the white sparks. Not much anyway. I waited a miserable five days & then went to my dr. appt. Long story short - he saw nothing wrong with my eyes either. He told me to relax & my brain would heal. Easier said than done!
Now we're into mid-July. My summer had been miserable. I was anxious every day. From morning to night. I often woke up with a brick in my stomach & that butterfly feeling. My skin was hot & I felt like I had electric energy running through my body. My heart would beat hard & that would make me see my heartbeat in my eyes - which also scared me. I saw my therapist, talked to my brother (who suffers from anxiety problems too) & I had been to two doctors. Everyone said I needed to relax. Relieve stress. Let my brain heal. So I was trying. But every day was torture as I was certain I had a serious eye problem. I was comfortable wearing sunglasses inside & out. They were (are) my security blanket. I started to avoid looking at the sky, looking at lights, moving my eyes quickly. You name it. I was hyperfocused on my vision so absolutely any perceived movement terrified me. I would see a shadow, a glimmer in sunlight, a dust particle, a fly, a spot on the wall - you name - and think it was my eyes going wonky. I noticed everything! Every floater, every after image, every sparkle. EVERY THING. Even my cataract symptoms, which are legit, had never bothered me before. Ever. Now, in the dark, I could swear everything had a halo, everything was glowing, all light was irritating me.
Google is NOT your friend. It's just not. I started googling every eye issue under the sun & convincing myself I had them all. I started noticing other "problems" with my vision I had never noticed before. I started checking to see if I had symptoms for every eye issue possible. Constantly testing my eyes, staring at things, moving them around. Obsessively. It was a total nightmare.
Off the top of my head, here's a list of eye symptoms I could swear that I had (or still have) since starting to obsess in May: tons of floaters of all kinds, white eye sparks in sunlight, silver sparks, blue dots, white flashes, trouble reading, shaky eyes, jumpy vision, snowy vision, Irlen syndrome, prolonged after images, streaking, trouble focusing, seeing halos & starbursts, thinking my irises looked odd, and several more I'm forgetting at the moment. You get the idea. :wacko:
What's bad: I'm still have bad anxiety daily & I'm still seeing a lot of visual disturbances.
What's good: I KNOW it's anxiety related. I have started to focus on positive thinking. I KNOW this is going to pass. I know that it won't pass overnight & that anxiety takes a great toll on us & it takes time to heal. So I'm not expecting immediate results. I KNOW that anxiety causes visual disturbances. I KNOW that obsessing & hyper focusing on anything can make it 100 times worse than it is. I also know that floaters are common & normal. I found out that the white sparks are Blue Field Entropic Phenomenon and are also common & normal. And I'm seeing them all so much more because I can't stop thinking about them. I believe that I see other sparks & dots (occasionally) because of stress & that they are also normal. I KNOW that my sensitivity to sunlight & possibly my sensitively to bright white paper & computer screens is related to my cataracts. While it's possible I could have another issue, it's unlikely. Most of my "symptoms" can be explained away or are fleeting & what doctors would say are normal. I think all the focusing & obsession on my eyes has made me constantly see things that other people simply don't notice. I'm struggling but trying to get a grip on this bout of HA. I have NEVER had HA this bad in my life. And all of the anxiety & panic attacks are making me sick & taking a massive toll on my health & happiness.
I hope other people with current vision HA will see this & it will help them. I'd also love to have a few people to talk to or commiserate with on this. Especially if you've had similar issues but are now doing ok. I would LOVE to hear from you. :hugs:I'm hoping that this is the beginning of my recovery. I'm feeling rather positive today & have laughed a lot at work today. So I'm hoping. Fingers crossed.
Thanks everyone! :)