It's Official
Apr. 29th, 2014 03:14 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
trickykittyI'm stressed.
I had a strange eye vision issue while out with a friend Saturday. It seemed to last about 30 minutes or so and then went away. It was very similar to having stared at a bright light, so you have a spot where the light was until it dissipates, but this wasn't exactly dissipating. It had a distinguishable shape, so I kept looking around to see if I could find the bright object that I must have accidentally looked at too long, thinking maybe it was a set of lights on the ceiling or something outside the restaurant window. It was quite odd, but once it stopped, I stopped thinking about it. I thought maybe it was some weird response to my first bit of sake that I was drinking with my sushi dinner, kind of like how a tooth nerve might react to sharp cold, hot, or the occasional sweet.
Then, last night was another one of those panic/heart attacks (I swear, next time, I'm calling 911 and letting them hook me up to a heart monitor just to be sure, because this is getting old and ceases to be ridiculously painful every single time it happens).
This morning, shortly after getting to work, the vision thing started again, and I quickly noticed that I was unable to read words and such due to this very strange, and very specific blind spot that looked more like someone casting a bunch of miniature prisms into a specific section of my field of vision. This time I paid really close attention to it, as it was just like what happened Saturday. It started in the center of my field of vision in my left eye (and I could have sworn the one on Saturday was in the right eye, as I even checked that then - seriously, it was such a weird vision problem at the time that I was slightly worried). I held my hand up in the C-shaped "space" of the vision effect and couldn't see my hand, so it was a definite blind spot, and as it moved slowly to the left I could start to read the words in the center of my vision again. I did a quick search for "eye spots" and came across "floaters" (here's a good video on them) which could have been what I was seeing, but it still didn't seem quite right. This looked more like a very sharp and distinguished shape made of prisms, almost as though the light coming into the eye was being bounced around differently than the default. I "watched" it gradually move off to the upper left and then out of my field of vision over the course of about 30min, and then I started getting a headache on my right side. I took some ibuprofen and called the optometrist for an "emergency" appointment. I figured the headache on my right side would turn into a full-blown migraine and that maybe what I was seeing was the aura other people describe, but I'd never experienced the aura before, I didn't have an associated headache on Saturday, and shortly after taking the ibuprofen the headache went away, so I discounted the migraine idea.
When I got to the optometrist's office I stuck to my description without referencing my little online search. They did ask if I'd had any headaches before or after, and I confirmed. The doctor gave a quick look inside at the retina with a really bright light to make sure I didn't have any damage or other issues. Then he asked, "Have you been stressed recently?" Boy, howdy, me being stressed right now is quite an understatement. At that point he quite easily confirmed that what I have been experiencing are eye migraines. He asked if I knew what those were, and I said I'd experienced regular migraines and stomach migraines, so is it about the same, constricted blood vessels in the eye? Yep, specifically the blood vessels in the retina. That's exactly it.
Anyway, he said my description was dead on textbook, and amazingly enough, when I got back to the office I looked up eye migraines and images of eye migraines. Yep - that's EXACTLY what I saw:
The first two images more closely resemble the way mine looked - almost spot on - with more black and white versus color, and each "section" seemed like it "shimmered" if that makes any sense.
Here's an image that shows the "movement" of the anomaly really well.
I had a strange eye vision issue while out with a friend Saturday. It seemed to last about 30 minutes or so and then went away. It was very similar to having stared at a bright light, so you have a spot where the light was until it dissipates, but this wasn't exactly dissipating. It had a distinguishable shape, so I kept looking around to see if I could find the bright object that I must have accidentally looked at too long, thinking maybe it was a set of lights on the ceiling or something outside the restaurant window. It was quite odd, but once it stopped, I stopped thinking about it. I thought maybe it was some weird response to my first bit of sake that I was drinking with my sushi dinner, kind of like how a tooth nerve might react to sharp cold, hot, or the occasional sweet.
Then, last night was another one of those panic/heart attacks (I swear, next time, I'm calling 911 and letting them hook me up to a heart monitor just to be sure, because this is getting old and ceases to be ridiculously painful every single time it happens).
This morning, shortly after getting to work, the vision thing started again, and I quickly noticed that I was unable to read words and such due to this very strange, and very specific blind spot that looked more like someone casting a bunch of miniature prisms into a specific section of my field of vision. This time I paid really close attention to it, as it was just like what happened Saturday. It started in the center of my field of vision in my left eye (and I could have sworn the one on Saturday was in the right eye, as I even checked that then - seriously, it was such a weird vision problem at the time that I was slightly worried). I held my hand up in the C-shaped "space" of the vision effect and couldn't see my hand, so it was a definite blind spot, and as it moved slowly to the left I could start to read the words in the center of my vision again. I did a quick search for "eye spots" and came across "floaters" (here's a good video on them) which could have been what I was seeing, but it still didn't seem quite right. This looked more like a very sharp and distinguished shape made of prisms, almost as though the light coming into the eye was being bounced around differently than the default. I "watched" it gradually move off to the upper left and then out of my field of vision over the course of about 30min, and then I started getting a headache on my right side. I took some ibuprofen and called the optometrist for an "emergency" appointment. I figured the headache on my right side would turn into a full-blown migraine and that maybe what I was seeing was the aura other people describe, but I'd never experienced the aura before, I didn't have an associated headache on Saturday, and shortly after taking the ibuprofen the headache went away, so I discounted the migraine idea.
When I got to the optometrist's office I stuck to my description without referencing my little online search. They did ask if I'd had any headaches before or after, and I confirmed. The doctor gave a quick look inside at the retina with a really bright light to make sure I didn't have any damage or other issues. Then he asked, "Have you been stressed recently?" Boy, howdy, me being stressed right now is quite an understatement. At that point he quite easily confirmed that what I have been experiencing are eye migraines. He asked if I knew what those were, and I said I'd experienced regular migraines and stomach migraines, so is it about the same, constricted blood vessels in the eye? Yep, specifically the blood vessels in the retina. That's exactly it.
Anyway, he said my description was dead on textbook, and amazingly enough, when I got back to the office I looked up eye migraines and images of eye migraines. Yep - that's EXACTLY what I saw:
The first two images more closely resemble the way mine looked - almost spot on - with more black and white versus color, and each "section" seemed like it "shimmered" if that makes any sense.
Here's an image that shows the "movement" of the anomaly really well.
