Posted by yxibow on September 2, 2006, at 4:20:29
In reply to some more questions, feedback, posted by nickguy on September 1, 2006, at 21:46:51
> -Thanks guys for the info. It's comforting to know that others experience this.
>
> - The floaters aren't really disturbing- The one thing that happens ocassionally which is a bit strange is the sudden onset of little clear flashy things that slowly move along my field of vision. It lasts for about 15 seconds, and comes maybe once a week, or less. Yxibow, is this like what you were talking about when you described a trail of ants?
I'm not sure if I described a trail of ants ? But I did describe the biopsychiatric phenomenon of palinopsia, which can have many roots. That is what you see, as I said if you look at a bright traffic light and see it trailing away, or your television or cellphone trailing away.A brief description can be found at the always useful Wikipedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palinopsia
The clear flashy things that happen rarely, I am not a trained opthamologist obviously but it sounds more like something in the vitreous rather than a persistent 24/7 psychiatric phenomenon. As we age, or due to eye trauma, or other factors, tissue slowly breaks off into the vitreous fluid below the corneal layers next to the retina. These pieces of tissue can appear as large "spider webs" as I have a small one in my right eye, or flickering or flashing lights or spots that move or stay in one place when looking at a clear blue sky. This is normal, though one may be bothered until the mind psychologically adjusts to ignore them.
What is more alarmist is if you see sudden (as in within an hour or something) flashes or dramatic increases in these floaters which may indicate retinal detachment and as I say then one goes post haste to a good ER to have microsurgery.
> - I'm also concerned about the T.V screen type vision. It's there even when I'm looking at a blank white wall. I don't know if this is related to peripheral or neural reasons. I also have anxiety, yxibow.
I would peruse that bulletin board I mentioned before about the TV screen vision. There is no clear indication, but there are a number of stories about such vision and as I recall at one point someone even posted a website illustrating what it would look like. The reasons for this can be very different for different people and sometimes not particularly easy to diagnose. Some people experience this because of migraines and when they have taken medication for them it stops. Some have this because of side effects to medications. Some may have this possibly due to a psychiatric condition.And finally, some may indeed have a physical condition on the optic nerve, which as noted can be seen in an exam. There are oral (I'm not sure about opthalmic) corticosteroid medications such as prednisolone, which are cautiously used and debated about in aiding the healing of optic nerve damage -- because they can also cause damage themselves and additionally lower your immune response.
I would be concerned as well about the TV screen type of vision, but the only way to rule out whether it is psychiatric or biological is to both have an eye exam and a gadolinium contrasted MRI, neither of which are cheap, I know.
I'm not trying to be alarmist, if you have lived this way for an extensive period of time or your whole life it is likely not anything that an MRI can detect (psychiatric disorders cannot be detected by MRIs except perhaps for severe schizophrenia which may show up as a slightly different brain structure, although that even I'm not sure).
I just had peace with both exams as my particular condition was so unlike any other OCD or anxiety that I have had my whole life that it was finally making me so anxious that my doctor okayed the MRI. The eye exam I had when this first started as I thought it was something like RP or some other unexplained physical eye disorder. The eye, by the way is the only part of the brain that can be seen entirely (including the optic nerve) by an opthamologist.
I don't really have anxiety at the moment, its supressed by medication but I think its also transformed into this condition and expressed that way as while I have felt other forms of anxiety throughout this time due to other reasons, like minor panic attack syndromes, this one is relatively "jumpy" free.
Its just positively annoying (not to mention I can't believe even nearly 5 years later that it just happened overnight literally after other strange phenomenon including a year of 99.6 sub- fevers in the evening (yes, I had dozens of tests at my begging, all normal).
And I want my relatively normal life back, as best as I can do, and I know I can't live in this stuck mode of life and I have to move on, but its always difficult when nobody can see through your psychiatric vision.
To better health and understanding-- Jay
poster:yxibow
thread:681799
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20060901/msgs/682216.html