stella55
16-08-16, 17:20
Hello,
I am 24 years old, female. For almost a year now I have been experiencing very weird and sometimes frightening visual disturbances. I don’t know what this could be. I saw 2 ophthalmologists, both said my eyes were fine (besides the usual myopia). I might see a neurologist. But I also have OCD and lots of anxiety issues, and I figured anxiety and stress may also cause a wide variety of weird symptoms.
It all started as I experienced my first and so far only ocular migraine attack. I developed a scotoma slightly to the left from my focus point. It was small at first, but then grew bigger and bigger. Then I started seeing colorful lines, zigzags and circles on a black background. I couldn’t see almost anything with my left eye, but I only saw very little of these disturbances with my right eye. I don’t know if it’s relevant or not, but my left eye has a much stronger myopia (-5,0) than my right eye (-3,0). Anyway, the attack was terrifying. I started panicking and my mom had to give me a stress relief pill which she uses for herself. Then the symptoms slowly disappeared.
About a month and a half afterwards, I had a terrible pulsating headache that lasted for 3 days! I also felt the same pain in my eyes. I couldn’t move, because it felt as if my eyes and head were going to explode. After this attack, I started seeing tiny dots in my vision, but these dots only appear when blinking or when I quickly glance the frames of my glasses. They are not the same dots all the time, old ones disappear and new ones appear. The dots look similar to floaters that are stuck in one place instead of floating around. I may see one big dot or a cluster of 2-3 small dots. I went to a forum where people were discussing this symptom, there is no definite diagnosis, but it seems that it is linked to some vascular problems.
And here is a list of other weird visual symptoms I have:
- When I look at a plain, bright surface (e.g. a wall) and move my eyes quickly up and down or to the sides, I see some bright lines (they sort of look like capillary structures or the Purkinje tree) flash up. This only works when it’s really bright, not when it gets darker.
- I started having trouble looking at contrasting lines (e.g. a striped shirt) or grid patterns (e.g. metal gratings) because the lines seem to move, it’s similar to the aliasing effect (what you see on TV when someone wears striped clothing). Certain contrasting color combinations (e.g. red/blue) are also irritating to my eyes.
- Sometimes I see things (especially lines) move or “vibrate” in my peripheral vision, especially when I am walking past them. This can be best seen when I’m walking on the street and look down to the ground, the horizontal lines of the pavement stones in my peripheral vision don’t seem to pass by smoothly, rather they seem to be shaking. It’s quite difficult to explain : )
- My family still uses an older CRT television set, and I noticed it sometimes irritates my eyes as well, I may see zigzag lines on bright colors shown (like red or even on someone’s face :D) and if I turn my eyes and the TV is in my peripheral vision, I see very strong flickering of it. Never noticed this before, only recently.
- I also experience a “flickering lights effect”. When I am in a dark room for a longer time or am looking out the window at night and then go back into a brightly lit room, after I blink (especially when pushing my eyelids stronger) I see this flickering lights effect for a very short time. It stops after my eyes adapt to the light again.
- It’s sometimes difficult for me to turn my eyes strongly to the sides, the muscles may hurt or I start seeing dark circles or even flashes of light. There was also an accident when I went into the bathroom to just wash my hands quickly so I didn’t turn the light on. Meanwhile, the door closed by itself and as I was in complete darkness, I noticed with horror that I kept seeing flashes of white light on the opposite direction to where I moved my eyes. I started avoiding complete darkness since then and I don’t even know if I still have this symptom or not.
- Not really vision related, but I sometimes have a very short and strong dizziness attack even when I am completely still (sitting/standing or looking at a monitor for a long time). It doesn’t even feel like “real” dizziness, just a very momentary strong sensation. Maybe it’s just psychosomatic.
- Also, I’ve had visual snow for my whole life. I understand that it also comes with some other visual disturbances in addition to the snow (I have some of them, like afterimages, tinnitus etc.), but since this phenomena isn’t very well researched yet, I guess we can’t figure out whether at least some of my symptoms are connected to VS or not...
Also, I noticed that most of these symptoms (from the list) disappear or become milder if I squint or close one eye or am wearing sunglasses. Unfortunately, I don’t wear them very often because I am not so fond of contacts. I am thinking about getting photochromic glasses, maybe they may help a little.
I did lots of research, but I only found possible explanations for just some of these symptoms, not the whole combination that I am having. On one site, the difficulty looking certain patterns was suggested to be caused by chronic ocular migraine. That seemed like a very plausible answer to me, however I couldn’t find any further information on “chronic ocular migraine”, and it seems that this is not an official term. I can’t find the site where I found it either. Other possible explanations include eye strain (also linked to stress and overall muscle strain), vascular problems, stress and anxiety yet again, and so on. Some people even suggested that these were "normal" symptoms that I only notice because I am very sensitive to my body, but I'm not really buying this explanation. Of course, there are also some very serious diseases, but I don’t even want to dig deep into those topics. I already had terrible obsessions about possibly having a brain tumor or other fatal diseases, I really don’t want to go back there.
My mom, who used to work as a neurologist and then later also as a psychiatrist, says that this looks to her like some blood flow problems in my retina or brain. I have very low blood pressure, and she says this may be the cause. But she also knows my neurotic tendencies and says that it can also be caused by my stress and anxiety, or it’s a mixture of both. I was having severe anxiety issues right since my early teenage years, but seemed to get better at coping with it, or at least so I thought. Maybe I simply stopped noticing that I am stressed or anxious, and the anxiety established itself in my body instead of my mind.
What do you think about my symptoms? Could this be caused by anxiety? Has anyone else experienced something similar?
Thanks for your help!
I am 24 years old, female. For almost a year now I have been experiencing very weird and sometimes frightening visual disturbances. I don’t know what this could be. I saw 2 ophthalmologists, both said my eyes were fine (besides the usual myopia). I might see a neurologist. But I also have OCD and lots of anxiety issues, and I figured anxiety and stress may also cause a wide variety of weird symptoms.
It all started as I experienced my first and so far only ocular migraine attack. I developed a scotoma slightly to the left from my focus point. It was small at first, but then grew bigger and bigger. Then I started seeing colorful lines, zigzags and circles on a black background. I couldn’t see almost anything with my left eye, but I only saw very little of these disturbances with my right eye. I don’t know if it’s relevant or not, but my left eye has a much stronger myopia (-5,0) than my right eye (-3,0). Anyway, the attack was terrifying. I started panicking and my mom had to give me a stress relief pill which she uses for herself. Then the symptoms slowly disappeared.
About a month and a half afterwards, I had a terrible pulsating headache that lasted for 3 days! I also felt the same pain in my eyes. I couldn’t move, because it felt as if my eyes and head were going to explode. After this attack, I started seeing tiny dots in my vision, but these dots only appear when blinking or when I quickly glance the frames of my glasses. They are not the same dots all the time, old ones disappear and new ones appear. The dots look similar to floaters that are stuck in one place instead of floating around. I may see one big dot or a cluster of 2-3 small dots. I went to a forum where people were discussing this symptom, there is no definite diagnosis, but it seems that it is linked to some vascular problems.
And here is a list of other weird visual symptoms I have:
- When I look at a plain, bright surface (e.g. a wall) and move my eyes quickly up and down or to the sides, I see some bright lines (they sort of look like capillary structures or the Purkinje tree) flash up. This only works when it’s really bright, not when it gets darker.
- I started having trouble looking at contrasting lines (e.g. a striped shirt) or grid patterns (e.g. metal gratings) because the lines seem to move, it’s similar to the aliasing effect (what you see on TV when someone wears striped clothing). Certain contrasting color combinations (e.g. red/blue) are also irritating to my eyes.
- Sometimes I see things (especially lines) move or “vibrate” in my peripheral vision, especially when I am walking past them. This can be best seen when I’m walking on the street and look down to the ground, the horizontal lines of the pavement stones in my peripheral vision don’t seem to pass by smoothly, rather they seem to be shaking. It’s quite difficult to explain : )
- My family still uses an older CRT television set, and I noticed it sometimes irritates my eyes as well, I may see zigzag lines on bright colors shown (like red or even on someone’s face :D) and if I turn my eyes and the TV is in my peripheral vision, I see very strong flickering of it. Never noticed this before, only recently.
- I also experience a “flickering lights effect”. When I am in a dark room for a longer time or am looking out the window at night and then go back into a brightly lit room, after I blink (especially when pushing my eyelids stronger) I see this flickering lights effect for a very short time. It stops after my eyes adapt to the light again.
- It’s sometimes difficult for me to turn my eyes strongly to the sides, the muscles may hurt or I start seeing dark circles or even flashes of light. There was also an accident when I went into the bathroom to just wash my hands quickly so I didn’t turn the light on. Meanwhile, the door closed by itself and as I was in complete darkness, I noticed with horror that I kept seeing flashes of white light on the opposite direction to where I moved my eyes. I started avoiding complete darkness since then and I don’t even know if I still have this symptom or not.
- Not really vision related, but I sometimes have a very short and strong dizziness attack even when I am completely still (sitting/standing or looking at a monitor for a long time). It doesn’t even feel like “real” dizziness, just a very momentary strong sensation. Maybe it’s just psychosomatic.
- Also, I’ve had visual snow for my whole life. I understand that it also comes with some other visual disturbances in addition to the snow (I have some of them, like afterimages, tinnitus etc.), but since this phenomena isn’t very well researched yet, I guess we can’t figure out whether at least some of my symptoms are connected to VS or not...
Also, I noticed that most of these symptoms (from the list) disappear or become milder if I squint or close one eye or am wearing sunglasses. Unfortunately, I don’t wear them very often because I am not so fond of contacts. I am thinking about getting photochromic glasses, maybe they may help a little.
I did lots of research, but I only found possible explanations for just some of these symptoms, not the whole combination that I am having. On one site, the difficulty looking certain patterns was suggested to be caused by chronic ocular migraine. That seemed like a very plausible answer to me, however I couldn’t find any further information on “chronic ocular migraine”, and it seems that this is not an official term. I can’t find the site where I found it either. Other possible explanations include eye strain (also linked to stress and overall muscle strain), vascular problems, stress and anxiety yet again, and so on. Some people even suggested that these were "normal" symptoms that I only notice because I am very sensitive to my body, but I'm not really buying this explanation. Of course, there are also some very serious diseases, but I don’t even want to dig deep into those topics. I already had terrible obsessions about possibly having a brain tumor or other fatal diseases, I really don’t want to go back there.
My mom, who used to work as a neurologist and then later also as a psychiatrist, says that this looks to her like some blood flow problems in my retina or brain. I have very low blood pressure, and she says this may be the cause. But she also knows my neurotic tendencies and says that it can also be caused by my stress and anxiety, or it’s a mixture of both. I was having severe anxiety issues right since my early teenage years, but seemed to get better at coping with it, or at least so I thought. Maybe I simply stopped noticing that I am stressed or anxious, and the anxiety established itself in my body instead of my mind.
What do you think about my symptoms? Could this be caused by anxiety? Has anyone else experienced something similar?
Thanks for your help!