eye symptoms and lyme disease

[kixikix]

Hello. I am a female, 25 years old. I have several minor probably eye symptoms such as vision (night) snow, vision flickering when looking on the sky, scotomas that go away after a few seconds, entopic phenomenons etc. All those symptoms started at the age of 20 and untill now i don't have any ophthalmologic disorder and everything is fine with vision (i got used to the above symptoms). I have one question though. At the age of 10, I went to a slavic country and sat down to the grass. When I went to the toilet my mother noticed a black spot on my leg. That was a tick! Its head was in my skin and what was left outside my body was its feet. My mother put it out and as she said, she removed the whole of it. Now, Im wondering: a) It is said that if a tick bits you, you might get the lyme disease. Is it possible that it bit me (it was only inside my leg)and how do i find out 15 years later? b) Is it possible that the above vision symptoms are caused by lyme disease? c)I didn't mentioned and i don't know whether it is important, that since a few months I feel a little vertigo and sometimes wake up in the night with a feeling of earthquake. Does it has any conection with lyme disease? Thank you a lot!

[Forum-OD-MP]

"a) It is said that if a tick bits you, you might get the lyme disease. Is it possible that it bit me (it was only inside my leg)and how do i find out 15 years later?"

yes, the most common way to aquire lyme disease is from the bite of a "deer tick".  it is IMPOSSIBLE to find out 15 years later if you were bitten by that tick or if that tick was a deer tick.  the only thing you could do is have a battery of tests to try and figure out if you have lyme disease.

"b) Is it possible that the above vision symptoms are caused by lyme disease?"

yes, possible

"c)I didn't mentioned and i don't know whether it is important, that since a few months I feel a little vertigo and sometimes wake up in the night with a feeling of earthquake. Does it has any conection with lyme disease?"

yes, possibly

[ravyn]

Let me premise this by saying I am not a doctor but I have been experiencing some strange visual symptoms lately.

I don't think that you have Lyme disease only because you did not exhibit any of the typical symptoms of the disease following the tick bite. Also, since the tick was taken out immediately it is unlikely to have caused lyme disease. Did you experience fever, rash, headaches, and/or fatigue? If not, you most likely do not have lyme disease.

Your visual symptoms do not sound terribly troubling (they may be troubling to you) but they seem actually quite normal. Flickering when looking at the sky is NORMAL. EVERYONE experiences this. This is a normal function of the retina. There is a name for this but it eludes me right now. Snow in low light is also normal. At least it is for me and I asked my husband who also confirms that in low light settings everything appears like snow or like a static channel on TV but less white and obvious (if that makes any sense).

As far as scotomas, you would have to get your eyes dilated to see if there are any retinal holes, Weiss rings or other things that can cause scotomas. Sometimes this is just your eye adjusting to light/dark and sometimes it is caused by an underlying problem. There is no cure for scotomas but it would be a good idea just to get it checked out (it can't hurt) with a simple eye dilation examination. If there is a retinal tear or optic nerve problem, the doctor will be able to see it and it could prevent any future vision issues. However, most of the time scotomas are benign. Annoying but not harmful.

As far as the vertigo goes, do you mean that everything is literally spinning? There are so many things that can cause this that it would be difficult to give you an answer as to its cause. Go to the doctor and they will take blood tests to make sure you are not anemic or vitamin deficient. I know vitamin b12 deficiency can cause this sensation. Other things that can cause vertigo include inner ear infection, viral infection affecting the middle ear, stress or anxiety, high or low blood pressure, diabetes, Benign Positional Vertigo...  The list could go on and on.  I’m not sure about the earthquake feeling although I have woken up feeling "shaky" before. In my case, I think its stress and lack of sleep or strange sleeping patterns.

[kixikix]

Thanks a lot for analyzing every little detail! Its a fact that in the past I was so worried about all those vision symptoms but after 4 years having them I realized that I still have a 100% vision and im healthy. What I didn't mentioned to my question above (because i wanted to emphasize on lyme disease) is that I do a dilating test every year and everything is fine so far. My left eye is a bit blury for a few months now and the eye doctor said that I need to take vitamin A pills and i will. I have also anemea and i once had a migrain with aura. I think all these maybe cause vision abnormalities. E.g. when I don't sleep well, i have noticed that my vision is worst and when i have my period i see more scotomas. Maybe there is an answer but is a bit more profound and nobody ever (doctor and patient) searches about it with every inch of detail. That's probably good because we don't end up crazy (although bad for research & medicine). When i had my first floater I was so annoyed by it like it was the end of the world but after all the other problems developed I stopped thinking of it. Anyway, I will check out if i have lyme disease, please if you remember tell me what flickering on the sky is called. (promise i won't let it bother me much). Thanks a lot again!

[ravyn]

That's interesting since I thought vitamin A deficiency only caused night vision loss (or at least the initial symptoms of Hypovitaminosis A would only be loss of vision at night). Maybe, this is the fuzziness you describe in low light but I'm telling you in certain low lights (especially where a peripheral light is shadowing a dark room, I see static as described in my previous post). I would go to the doctor and get a blood test to see if you are truly deficient in any vitamins. It's a painless test and it will tell you with 100% certainty if you have a vitamin A deficiency or any other mineral/vitamin deficiencies. Don't take more than 800 micrograms of vitamin A a day or you could overdose on the stuff! Eat carrots too! You can't OD on vitamin A in the form of beta-carotene but if you have too much your skin will turn orange/yellow! Anemia could definitely cause feelings of dizziness but if you are experiencing true vertigo which means objects that are not moving are literally spinning, you need to first see an ENT  doctor to rule out middle ear problems. I had  Labrynthitis twice in my life and experienced true vertigo, couldn't stand without falling down, everything spinning....HORRIBLE!

The effect you see when you stare at the sky is called Scheerer's phenomenon or blue field entopic phenomenon.