Hello. Not diagnosed yet - been lost in the system but since December 2019 I have had regular episodes of hazy vision in my left eye which has made text hard to read. The first time I had it, it followed a week of extremely poor balance and one fall, and it only lasted a few days. Since then I have had recurrences in January, February, April and started again yesterday. Each time now they last for about a week gradually deteriorating then fading to normal. However, today is the worst its ever been and I have had to start using the on-screen magnifier as reading ordinary text is nigh on impossible. Any ideas? Also ridiculously tired at the moment.
Thanks in advance
Humpty Dumpty
Hey there! I really understand your anxiety. I’m not sure you will like this but nobody in here can tell you what it is exactly because those symptoms could be cause by so many reasons. I would suggest you to talk about it with your doctor. If he doesn’t think it’s relevant then I suggest you to try to insist and maybe talk to a neurologist. I’m saying this because sometimes symptoms can be ignored and that is not right. I also had optic neuritis and at first my eye doctor thought it was stress lol! It took me 2 weeks to convince them I wasn’t able to see! Anyhow, I’ve just been diagnosed with multiple sclerosis and they explained to me that a ms relapse is a neurological symptom (or more than one) that lasts for at least 24 hours and it’s located to a specific part of the body. So it doesn’t matter the intensity. He said I could experience very strong tingling for few hours and that is not relevant! But I could also experience itching on the nose for more than one day, that is relevant! Not sure it could help, I would focus on ms too much but definitely to get at the bottom of those issues. Good luck!
Personally I would make an appointment with an optician first off.
Hi, I had optic neuritis last year and my vision went really weird, it usually got worse when my body temperature went up. I went to the optician and they sent me straight to the eye hospital. I would really recommend getting it seen to asap, your sight is so important! I now have the same symptoms, but in my other eye and am undergoing all sorts of tests for MS. I dithered with my eye and it just caused far more stress and worry than it needed to. And the doctors were really reassuring with it. I hope things go okay and you get to the bottom of everything!
Hello
I rather agree with Thistlelass. If it’s possible / when it’s possible, seeing an optician would help immensely in determining if you have, or have had, optic neuritis. They can see the optic nerve with their specific equipment which a GP wouldn’t.
Suebian is also right in that the users of the forum can’t say if this is, or isn’t ON. Or indeed any specific diagnosis, like MS. We can share experience however. ON can manifest in similar ways to the way you’ve described your symptoms, although with ON associated with MS, it seems unlikely that you’d have symptoms coming and going for relatively short periods, but coming back again and again.
Equally, your other symptoms could be connected to your eye sight issues. Falling when you can’t see well is quite common, as is fatigue, or they could be related to something else. Maybe MS, just as likely not though, it could even have been / could be a virus - Epstein Barr (glandular fever) maybe?
So, seeing an optician is a good call, as is talking to your GP about exactly what you’ve described in this post. The GP could refer you to a neurologist, or to an optometrist. Either way, it may take some time for appointments to come through, so make sure your GP marks any referral as ‘urgent’. Your GP could also refer you for blood tests to rule other causes out.
Eyesight is precious, so get it checked out. Ignoring a symptom that keeps recurring in your eyes is not a good idea.
Best of luck Humpty (don’t start falling off the wall!)
Sue