Hi everyone,
for almost two years now I've been experiencing some bizarre visual disturbances. I got my eyes checked, the doctor said they are fine. One doctor said my symptoms seem to be related to bloodflow in the brain and the retina. Some people have told me that anxiety can cause them and if I stopped thinking about them they would go away. I find it possible, as I've been suffering from chronic anxiety for many years. But I stopped paying attention to them and I still have these symptoms and some of them even got worse. The symptoms are as follows:
* Sometimes I see small bright dots in one of the eyes (can be either eye), but they are visible only when I blink, I don't see them all the time;
* I started having trouble looking at lines or grids or striped patterns because they irritate my eyes;
* Bright colors (especially red) and bright color combinations (pink/green/red/blue etc) also irritate my eyes, and bright blue light can even cause pain in my eyes;
* I get some kind of "flickering light" effect in my peripheral vision, especially in dim light or if I enter a bright room after being in the dark for a longer time;
* When I look at a plain white surface (e.g. a wall) and quickly move my eyes, I experience dark flashing lightning-like structures in my peripheral vision (similar to the Purkinje tree);
* When I walk on the street and look down at the sidewalk tiles, they don't seem to pass smoothly, but rather I see them shaking and trembling in my peripheral vision;
* I have some annoying floaters that are darker than the "normal" ones and I've also had them for a much longer time ("normal" floaters go away relatively fast, these ones are stuck with me for a couple of months now);
* Sometimes I experience random after-images that appear on their own, without me looking at any lightsource;
* I sometimes see visual trails from fast-moving objects, e.g. a car driving by, or me moving my arm fast;
* I get these weird "flashes" that last only for a few miliseconds: if I look at an object for a long time, something seems to "flash" and the color of the object seems to change for a moment, althouth I am not very sure about this one, as it lasts very very short and I can't identify what it really looks like. And sometimes my eyeball simply trembles when I look at something intensely, especially if it's an object far away;
* All of these symptoms started (one by one) some time after I experienced an ocular migraine attack a few years ago, but I haven't had another attack ever since.
Some other symptoms that might be related:
* I have myopia with one eye being much weaker (R -3,0 L -5,0);
* I often get cluster headaches on one side of the head and one eye;
* I also get dizziness attacks or simply days when I'm dizzy all the day;
* I've had visual snow and tinnitus my whole life. I don't know if it may be connected. Might be linked to the blood flow problems mentioned earlier.
Right now a bright red ribbon is laying on the carpet and when it is in my peripheral vision and I move my eyes, it seems to be flashing and moving in a weird way. These symptoms freak me out. Obviously, I tend to think about the worst: brain tumor, multiple sclerosis, Behcet's disease and so on. It is very difficult to find a cause for ALL the symptoms because many of them are so bizarre and also difficult to describe. But I am hopeful that it may indeed be caused by anxiety. Does anyone experience anything similar?
Thank you in advance!
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Originally Posted by Velociraptor
